The U.S. Government Is Now a Minority Owner in Quantum Computing

The Department of Commerce announced $2 billion in incentives for nine quantum computing companies this week. Every outlet will lead with that number. It is not the story.

The story is what the government is getting in return. The CHIPS Act is not writing grants or making loans. It is taking a minority equity stake in each company, making taxpayers a partial owner of ventures that include IBM's new Anderon quantum foundry, GlobalFoundries, and seven quantum startups. The equity stake is a novel instrument for American semiconductor policy. It has not been deployed at scale in this sector before, and it is not obviously good or bad. It is structurally different from anything that came before it.

The upside is concrete: if quantum computing becomes commercially viable, taxpayers share in the return. The complication is equally concrete: a minority, non-controlling stake means the government has no board seat, no licensing authority, and no say in how a company manages its IP, workforce, or technology transfer agreements.

IBM Anderon is the highest-profile test case. The Commerce Department is putting $1 billion in CHIPS incentives into Anderon, which IBM will match with $1 billion in cash plus IP, assets, and workers, establishing a standalone subsidiary headquartered in Albany, New York, operating as a 300mm quantum wafer foundry. Anderon has been fabricating 300mm quantum wafers at NY CREATES Albany since November 2025. It is already running. The government will receive a minority, non-controlling equity stake as a condition for receiving the funds, according to the Commerce Department press release. The arrangement puts the taxpayer inside the cap table. IBM runs the company.

GlobalFoundries is receiving $375 million for a domestic quantum foundry under the same program. The total CHIPS Act quantum commitment stands at $2.013 billion across nine companies, according to NIST. The broader CHIPS Act has allocated $33 billion in grants and $7 billion in loans to 35 companies across 52 projects, per the Semiconductor Industry Association. The quantum equity stakes are a separate experiment within that larger program, one that trades grant simplicity for ownership exposure.

AMD also announced this week the start of its production ramp of Venice processors on TSMC 2nm process technology, the leading edge of conventional chip manufacturing. Meanwhile, Imec announced it has fabricated the first quantum dot qubit device using high-NA EUV lithography, achieving gate gaps of 6 nanometers. High-NA EUV is the next-generation lithography machine that ASML is still shipping to foundries; using it to make qubits rather than logic is a bet that quantum and classical semiconductors will eventually share manufacturing infrastructure.

A quantum industry estimated to generate up to $850 billion in economic value by 2040 is not a charity. If it works, the government's inside position has real value. If it does not work, the minority stake loses most of its worth along with the rest of the capital. The instrument is neutral. The question is whether a non-controlling minority stake in early-stage quantum companies is the right exposure for the U.S. taxpayer, and that question has not been seriously examined yet.

AMD continues to invest at pace. AMD announced more than $10 billion in investments across the Taiwan ecosystem to accelerate AI infrastructure, a bet that advanced packaging and foundry access matter as much as chip design. TSMC's 2nm node is where AMD is placing that bet. Imec's 6nm gate gaps are where quantum is placing its own.

The equity stake is the story. The $2 billion is the context.