Our Investment in Q-Factor: Building a Million-Qubit Quantum Computer
Quantum computing has reached an inflection point. Scientific progress has been remarkable, but scale remains the defining barrier between research systems and commercial impact. Today, we’re excited to share our investment in Q-Factor as it emerges from stealth with $24 million in seed funding to build a new generation of scalable quantum computers based on neutral atom technology. The round was led by NFX and TPY Capital, with participation from Korea Investment Partners, Deep33, and the Matias family, alongside a grant from the Israel Innovation Authority.
Despite impressive technical progress across modalities, today’s quantum systems remain far too small to deliver meaningful commercial value. Moving from a few hundred qubits to the hundreds of thousands—and ultimately millions—needed for commercial applications demands more than incremental progress. It requires fundamental advances across the entire stack and modalities.
Nature’s Perfect Qubits
Neutral atoms have rapidly emerged from their relative obscurity of barely a decade ago to become one of the most promising approaches for building a large-scale quantum computer. And it’s not hard to see why:
- Naturally identical qubits, enabling large-scale arrays without fabrication variability
- Inherently isolated from ambient electromagnetic fields, resulting in longer coherence times
- Precisely controllable with lasers, bypassing the need for complex wiring
- Capable of tunable, high-fidelity entanglement and multi-qubit logic gates
However, today’s neutral atom quantum computing platforms still face fundamental scaling limits. Q-Factor was founded to change that.
The Q-Factor
Breaking the modality’s scaling bottlenecks, however, is no easy feat. Q-Factor’s exceptional founding team is up to the task. Professors Nir Davidson, Ofer Firstenberg, and Yoav Sagi are among the world’s leading researchers in the field, with decades of pioneering research in ultracold atoms, quantum optics, and advanced laser systems. Dr. Guy Raz completes the founding team with not just technical talent but more than 20 years of experience building and scaling deep tech ventures.
After closely studying the architectural bottlenecks limiting current neutral atom platforms, the team developed a novel architecture that enables continuous scalability for neutral atom systems, potentially enabling a Moore’s Law-like trajectory that could scale neutral atom quantum computers to millions of atoms and beyond.
Our Perspective
At Intel Capital, we back companies that combine world-class technology breakthroughs with the commercial ambition to match. Q-Factor’s founders have spent decades at the research frontier. They have seen firsthand the field’s struggles and are building from first principles to push the boundaries of what neutral atom systems can achieve.
This rare combination of breakthrough research, founding team cohesion, architectural clarity, and execution capability uniquely positions Q-Factor to unlock the full potential of neutral atom quantum computing.
The race to commercial utility in quantum computing remains open, with massive opportunities across modalities and throughout the entire stack. We’re proud to partner with the Q-Factor team and look forward to supporting their journey toward building the world’s first million-qubit neutral atom quantum computer.
