AMD (AMD.US) Enters the "Trillion-Dollar Quantum Race": Partners with PsiQuantum to Develop Fault-Tolerant, Utility-Scale Quantum Infrastructure, and Plans to Take an Equity Stake

AMD (AMD.US) announced that it has reached an expanded partnership with PsiQuantum to jointly design infrastructure capable of supporting the operation of fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computers. The deal comes as quantum computing attracts growing investor attention, with companies and governments seeking systems that can solve scientific and commercial problems that traditional computers struggle to handle. Technological breakthroughs in the field have driven optimism about quantum computing applications in areas such as drug discovery, financial modeling, and cryptography. The U.S. Department of Commerce announced in May that it plans to make minority equity investments in nine quantum computing companies under the CHIPS Act, with a total investment of US$2 billion, including a US$100 million deal with PsiQuantum. This collaboration builds on the two companies' existing R&D foundation based on AMD Versal series FPGAs, newly integrating AMD Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs, and the ROCm software stack alongside PsiQuantum's silicon photonic quantum platform. As part of the deal, AMD also plans to make an equity investment in PsiQuantum for an undisclosed amount. PsiQuantum CEO Victor Peng said: "Quantum computing will work in concert with artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to tackle problems that are currently difficult to solve in fields such as healthcare, materials, energy, and finance. By integrating the teams and technologies of both sides, PsiQuantum and AMD will drive the future development of the computing industry: building the underlying infrastructure to support utility-scale quantum systems, and exploring new approaches to silicon photonic networks to solidify the foundation for scaling next-generation artificial intelligence." The collaboration aligns with the U.S. Department of Energy's "Quantum Genesis Priority Applications (QGPAs)," which identifies a set of core scientific directions for deployable fault-tolerant quantum computing, covering chemistry, materials, subatomic physics, and applied mathematics. PsiQuantum is currently the anchor tenant of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park in Chicago. AMD Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster said: "Our collaboration with PsiQuantum brings AMD's full-stack computing and software capabilities to this frontier track, leveraging the strengths of both sides to accelerate the pace of bringing utility-scale quantum computing to fruition." Quantum computing still accounts for a relatively limited share of technology giants' R&D budgets. IBM (IBM.US) has committed US$10 billion over the next five years and is expected to become the highest-spending company in this field. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna expects investment in the quantum field to begin generating quantifiable industrial value around 2028 to 2029. He said: "We are now fully confident that by the late 2030s, quantum computing will create trillion-dollar-level market value."