In the world of quantum computing, some of the world’s most important tech giants are striving to achieve a permanent advantage over classical computing, solving problems that simply cannot be solved using any number of classical computers. A bevy of start-ups are also in contention, with promising ideas, although some are still just scientific concepts. This article will touch on the industry landscape and detail why we believe that IBM is in the pole quantum position. (Like many in the tech industry, IBM is a client of Cambrian-AI Research.)
IBM
Background
Quantum stocks and private company valuations have skyrocketed in 2025. Pure-play public quantum computing stocks like IonQ, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, and Quantum Computing saw trailing 12-month gains ranging from roughly double to nearly 20-fold, vastly outpacing the Nasdaq Composite.
In addition to these early pure-play publicly traded firms, tech behemoths like IBM, Nvidia, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are investing in what they hope will become “Next Big Thing After AI”. Of course, Big Tech funds quantum investments from their existing compute and IT businesses, while early IPO companies have more acute investors demands, so naturally there is some angst about the short-term trajectory of the latter after the recent run-ups.
Quantum research and development requires massive investments in scientific research and increasingly product development for competitive advantage and product/service sales. All told, the industry has invested well over1.9 billion in venture capital alone in 2024 for quantum startups in 62 funding rounds, a 138 percent increase over the USD 789 million raised in 2023, according to Crunchbase data. Leading companies across a wide range of industries are now developing their quantum strategies to benefit from what will almost certainly become one of the most impactful revolutions in computing since, well, AI.
This article outlines the various modalities vying to achieve Quantum Advantage (QA) over the next few years. Achieving QA means that quantum has performed meaningful tasks that simply cannot be calculated by any classical supercomputer of any size. We then dive into news from the leader in the field of quantum superconducting qubits and quantum computing overall, IBM.
Quantum Modalities
Unlike digital semiconductor-based computing, quantum computing methodologies are all over the map, and it is not yet clear which “modalities” will come out on top. Some companies, like IBM and Google, use superconducting qubits cooled to near absolute zero. Others, such as Quantinuum, use charged ion particles trapped and suspended in a space.
In fact, the quantum computing landscape features six primary hardware modalities competing for dominance: superconducting qubits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, photonic systems, silicon spin qubits, and the nascent research into topological qubits. Each approach offers distinct advantages and faces unique challenges in the race toward fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computing. In my opinion, IBM is the leader in superconducting, Quantinuum is probably the leading player in trapped ions, and QuEra is the contender in neutral atoms. The other three modalities are not yet in a competitive stance but theoretically show promise.
