Quantum tech may be having its moment at long last.
Consider that earlier this month, one of the few “pure play” quantum tech companies in the world, Rigetti Computing, went public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC. It only narrowly missed becoming the first publicly traded company to expressly focus on commercializing quantum tech when another outfit, IonQ, went public through a SPAC merger in October. Meanwhile, another rival in the space, D-Wave, says it is also now planning to go public via SPAC.
While movement toward the public markets is one indicator that quantum tech is progressing beyond the realm of the theoretical, an even stronger signal that it’s getting ready for its close-up ties to Alphabet, which said this morning that it’s spinning out its six-year-old quantum tech group, Sandbox AQ, into a standalone company.
Jack Hidary, who was formerly the director of AI and quantum …
