The World Fund, a newcomer to the climate venture capital space, is leading a $128 million financing round for IQM in the hope that the Finnish quantum computing company will one day achieve megatons of carbon reductions. Quantum computing replaces the bits of traditional computers with quantum bits, and in theory, quantum machines may be better suited to solve some highly complex problems in fields such as chemistry and machine learning.
IQM believes its technology could also drive the climate, but there are reasons to be skeptical of the industry as a whole; we’ve seen a lot of hype around quantum computing startups, but progress in the field is still mostly stuck in the lab today.
However, IQM expects its quantum computers to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the next three to five years, especially “for some early use cases. The company said it is already “working with a leading automaker to develop new approaches to better battery solutions” and plans to use its new funding for further research in battery technology, quantum chemistry and other areas.
The idea of applying quantum technology to climate change mitigation is apparently not so far-fetched. Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich has said he “[believes] quantum computing can help solve the problem of climate change, particularly the challenge of carbon capture (sequestration).” Microsoft’s research includes uncovering how quantum computing can discover “more efficient” ways to convert carbon dioxide into other compounds.
The World Fund and other investors in IQM are also backing the idea implicitly through their checkbooks. In a statement, the German venture capital firm said it would back only technologies that have the potential to remove “100 million tons” (or 100 megatons) of carbon from the atmosphere each year by 2040. Other investors in the latest round include the European Union’s European Innovation Council and Tencent. A person familiar with the matter identified the deal as bringing IQM’s post-investment valuation close to the $1 billion mark.
Some quantum computing companies have faced accusations of exaggerating their results. Maryland-based IonQ has been talking up its progress in quantum computing, but activist investor Scorpion Capital recently accused the company of fraud, calling its technology a “useless toy that doesn’t even add up to 1+1.” IonQ’s founders pushed back against the allegations, saying they were “amused by the extreme ignorance behind such attacks. In a related area, former staffers at British quantum crypto company Arqit reportedly questioned the usefulness and maturity of its quantum technology.
