Australia has gone all-in on quantum, betting billions on PsiQuantum’s Brisbane facility while building alliances and spin-outs from Sydney to Chicago. With defence contracts, investor momentum and Five Eyes strategy at stake, Canberra’s gamble is to lead, not follow, in the quantum race.
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Australia has gone all-in on quantum, betting billions on PsiQuantum’s Brisbane facility while building alliances and spin-outs from Sydney to Chicago. With defence contracts, investor momentum and Five Eyes strategy at stake, Canberra’s gamble is to lead, not follow, in the quantum race.
In May 2024, the Australian government made its first bold move in quantum: a A$940mn commitment to PsiQuantum, the US company co-founded by Australian physicist Jeremy O’Brien, to build the world’s first utility-scale quantum computer in Brisbane by 2027. That wager has since been amplified by markets. In September 2025, PsiQuantum closed a US$1bn Series E round led by BlackRock, Temasek and Nvidia, valuing the firm at US$7bn and accelerating construction of the Brisbane facility.
The funding will be used to build utility-scale quantum computing sites in Brisbane and Chicago, deploy large-scale prototype systems to validate systems architecture, and further advance the performance of its quantum photonic chips and fault-tolerant architecture. The company’s technology utilizes photonic qubits and high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, with chips designed by PsiQuantum and manufactured at GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 in New York. A key component of this approach is the integration of Barium Titanate (BTO) into its manufacturing flow to create ultra-high-performance optical switches.
For Canberra, this is more than just tech hype. Quantum is expected to generate A$6bn in annual value and nearly 20,000 jobs by 2045, while securing Australia’s place in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, where partners see quantum as decisive for cryptography, secure communications and military supremacy.
Quantum computing exploits the physics of subatomic particles to perform functions beyond the capabilities of existing computers. Australia’s prominent role in its development has been built on top of breakthrough academic work in the 1990s.
When US Senator Ted Cruz brandished a golden computer chip worth $1 billion at a Capitol Hill hearing earlier this year, he proclaimed it proof of American quantum supremacy. "This breakthrough is led by an American company," he declared, referring to Microsoft's Majorana 1 quantum processor.
"It left a weird feeling. I found Cruz's comments on US innovation writing the story of the 21st century pretty ironic."
David Reilly, the physicist whose University of Sydney laboratory actually developed key elements of that very chip. Microsoft has since acknowledged that
"many teams, including colleagues from Microsoft Sydney, have contributed to the development of intellectual property that has been utilised in the Majorana 1 initiative."
Reilly recently turned down a lucrative offer to relocate to Microsoft’s US headquarters, choosing instead to remain in Australia, where he has since founded Emergence Quantum. His new base, the A$150mn Sydney Nanoscience Hub, houses cutting-edge labs and one of the quietest research rooms in the world. His mission is clear: help quantum leap from research curiosity to commercial technology.
Australia’s National Quantum Strategy, launched in 2023, has set out a roadmap to turn two decades of academic breakthroughs into economic and strategic advantage. It underpins investments such as A$13mn for Quantum Brilliance and direct defence contracts with start-ups like Q-CTRL, which recently secured US$24mn from DARPA to develop quantum sensors for military vehicles.
This is not just about industry growth. In March 2025, Canberra hosted the Quantum Development Group, bringing together allies from the UK, US, Japan, Germany and beyond. The agenda was explicit: build a secure and trusted quantum ecosystem to counter adversaries and ensure technological sovereignty.
Australia’s start-ups are now part of global defence and research pipelines. Diraq and Silicon Quantum Computing are working with the US defence department on benchmarking. DeteQt, another Sydney spin-out, is developing magnetometers for submarines and has already won a A$3.3mn navy contract. The company is also eyeing applications in mining and healthcare, signalling the breadth of opportunity.Venture capital is leaning in.
“Australia has been like an R&D factory. We want founders and researchers to return,” says Main Sequence’s Alex Romero.
The goal is to stop the intellectual property drain that has long seen breakthroughs commercialised offshore.
The irony of Senator Cruz’s “American” breakthrough is that much of the intellectual groundwork was laid in Sydney. Now, with PsiQuantum’s Brisbane facility on track and a growing ecosystem of spin-outs and defence contracts, Australia has moved beyond being a research outpost.
The quantum race is no longer theoretical. It is industrial, economic and geopolitical. For Canberra, the gamble is that by betting early and heavily, Australia won’t just participate in the race — it will help set the pace.
For Australia, quantum is not an optional play. While AI sovereignty efforts remain modest, it is in quantum computing where Australia is making its boldest bets—and Washington has taken notice. This is no coincidence: Australia’s role is rooted in academic breakthroughs of the 1990s, which laid the foundations for today’s momentum.
Main Sequence Ventures believes quantum’s commercial moment is close. The Australian deep-tech fund, co-founded by CSIRO in 2017, manages more than A$1bn and has backed pioneers like Q-CTRL and Quantum Brilliance. Its latest thesis focuses on small but strategic bets on full-stack architectures, aligning with its longer fund horizons.
“We realised we were ready to invest in full-stack quantum computers,” Romero says. “We felt the timelines fit within our fund life—and because of the value creation prospects, we chose to invest carefully, in small amounts and across different architectures.”
That discipline underscores the bigger picture: quantum sits at the intersection of economic strategy, national security and alliance politics. Without local capacity, Australia risks dependence on foreign providers for critical defence and cyber infrastructure. With it, the country can leverage decades of leadership into industrial strength, high-value jobs and a stronger voice within the Five Eyes alliance.
The irony of Senator Cruz’s “American” breakthrough is that much of the intellectual groundwork was laid in Sydney. Now, with PsiQuantum’s Brisbane facility on track and a growing ecosystem of spin-outs and defence contracts, Australia has moved beyond being a research outpost.
Quantum has shifted from physics lecture halls to the heart of industrial policy and geopolitics. For Australia, the gamble is clear: bet early, scale fast, and ensure the breakthroughs stay at home. Quantum is Australia’s moonshot—but unlike space, this race is fought in the code, chips and alliances that will define the century.
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