Nvidia Invests in Honeywell’s Quantinuum. What It Means for D-Wave, IonQ, and Quantum Stocks.

Quantinuum announced a $600 million equity raise at a $10 billion pre-money equity valuation. (COURTESY QUANTINUUM)

Quantinuum said Thursday that it had raised $600 million at a pre-money equity valuation of $10 billion. Chip maker Nvidia was among the latest investors to come on board.

The funding round saw participation from existing shareholders Honeywell International, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsui, and Amgen, among others. But several new names were in the mix, including NVentures, Nvidia’s venture capital arm.

Quantum computing stocks traded mixed following the announcement. IonQ saw the most appreciable gains, rising 2.6%. Rigetti Computing gained 0.5% while D-Wave Quantum fell 1% after trading higher earlier in the session. Despite Thursday’s losses, D-Wave remains up 80% this year.

Nvidia traded slightly higher on Thursday. Honeywell rose 0.4%.

Whenever quantum computing is in the news, investors may use the opportunity to take profits. Stock moves are largely driven by sentiment and headlines, the clearest example being the selloff triggered by Nvidia’s annual developer conference in March.

Despite Nvidia’s efforts to showcase the technology through a dedicated “Quantum Day,” a lack of clarity around the timelines to wide-scale deployment, coupled with reinvigorated interest in the industry, caused shares to slide broadly.

Evidently, Nvidia is emerging as a player in the quantum space. So what’s the connection?

Rather than build the machines themselves, Nvidia makes software and systems to facilitate the integration of quantum computers with classical machines, in what is commonly referred to as hybrid computing.

The relationship between Nvidia, the artificial-intelligence giant, and Quantinuum, a private company majority-owned by Honeywell, should come as no surprise to those monitoring the industry.

Nvidia and Quantinuum have worked together since 2022, when Quantinuum became the first company to integrate Nvidia’s CUDA-Q platform with its own hardware. The companies also have teamed up on a Boston-based quantum computing research center.

In an interview with Barron’s last week, Quantinuum CEO Rajeeb Hazra explained how the companies had a “shared vision” for integrating quantum computers with classical machines.

“We work together to make our pieces compatible. That’s what the core of the partnership is,” Hazra said. Quantinuum’s latest software offering, a programming language called Guppy, is also meant to be compatible with CUDA-Q.

Quantinuum may be private for now, but the company is gearing up to make its trading debut. A source told Barron’s earlier this year that the company could go public as soon as next year, with Honeywell targeting the end of 2026 or 2027.

To date, not one quantum computing pure-play has turned a profit. The systems themselves are largely still in development as scientists balance the challenge of building larger machines with reducing the incidence of errors.

Quantinuum aims to release a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029. International Business Machines, its larger, publicly traded rival, plans to unveil “the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant supercomputer” the same year.

Clearly, the industry has years to go before reaching its full potential. But the latest investment from Nvidia—the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization—and other players only serves as an affirmation of the technology’s prospects.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com