InnovationAus.com - Chicago deal casts ‘dark shadow’ over PsiQuantum promise

PsiQuantum’s plan to build a second quantum computer in Chicago just a year after Brisbane “casts a very dark shadow” over the investment of the Australian and Queensland governments, according to shadow science minister Paul Fletcher.

The deal, part of a wider project to create a massive quantum computing campus in the US State of Illinois, also exposes the limits of the government’s deal-making in terms of exclusivity and intellectual property, he said.

On Thursday, PsiQuantum announced plans to build its second utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer in Chicago by 2028 – a year after it is set to deliver its first quantum computer in Brisbane.

The US State of Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago have agreed to a US$500 million “package of incentives”, understood to be tax-based, to secure the company as the anchor tenant at Chicago’s Quantum and Microelectronics Park.

Illinois has also provided a further US$500 million to develop the campus, which has been described as a modern-day Manhattan Project and could reportedly end up costing the state US$20 billion.

While PsiQuantum said its plans to deliver a quantum computer in Australia by 2027 “remain unchanged”, Mr Fletcher said the Illinois deal raises “obvious questions as to where the company’s real focus and energy is going to be”.

And with DARPA, the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Project Agency, and local universities also planning to co-locate at the Illinois site, the Brisbane venture could end up becoming a “bit of a sideshow” for the company, Mr Fletcher said.

“What appears to be the case is that what Australia’s getting out of this… is a big building that’s going to be filled with semiconductors that are manufactured somewhere else,” he told InnovationAus.com.

Mr Fletcher said the 30-year deal – which at US$500 million is “not much less” than that of the federal and Queensland governments – also adds further weight to the suspicion that the government was “quite commercially naïve”.

“If there was a deal that gave the Australian and Queensland governments in relation to the IP, it presumably wouldn’t be nearly as easy for PsiQuantum to then enter into a deal to build a major facility in Chicago,” he said.

“But the fact they have such a deal tends to confirm the suspicion that actually there’s no particular intellectual property rights that the Australian government has managed to secure.”

According to documents released under freedom of information laws earlier last week, PsiQuantum plans to operate its Brisbane site as a “flagship global facility over an expected 20-year life”, in exchange for the $940 million in Australian investment.

A spokesperson for Industry and Science minister Ed Husic said the State of Illinois deal further underscores the “strength of the Australian Government’s investment” in PsiQuantum which will position the country as a “global leader in the quantum race”.

“Our investment in PsiQuantum will deliver the company’s first Fault Tolerant Quantum Computer and Asia Pacific Headquarters to Brisbane, delivering more high paying jobs, driving economic growth and positioning Australia as a global leader in the quantum race.”

“Our investment is about more than securing our sovereign and defence capability while backing home-grown talent and a growing quantum sector, it’s about backing Australian industry and delivering the secure, high paying jobs Australian workers deserve.”

The spokesperson directed question about IP to the company.

Author: Justin Hendry

This article appeared in InnovationAus.com on 26 July 2024