U.S. Department of Commerce Awards Up to $100 Million Each to Rigetti and Two Other Quantum Computing Companies Under CHIPS Act, Will Hold Corresponding Minority Stakes

PANews, September 10 – According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Department of Commerce, through the CHIPS Act, has awarded up to $100 million each (totaling $300 million) to three quantum computing companies—Rigetti, D-Wave, and Quantinuum—and will take minority equity stakes in all three, to advance the development of hardware, manufacturing, and error correction systems for fault-tolerant quantum computers. Meanwhile, Ethereum has set December 2029 as the deadline for its execution layer, consensus layer, and data layer to achieve "quantum resistance"; Bitcoin developers are also advancing two post-quantum signature migration proposals, BIP-360 and BIP-361, with the industry believing that a viable migration path must be established before 2029. The report notes that no quantum computer currently poses a real threat to existing cryptographic systems, but approximately 1 million bitcoins (including Satoshi Nakamoto's holdings) have had their public keys exposed on-chain, and if migration lags, they could become "stranded assets."