Quantum has moved from the lab to the purchase order.
In March the government committed up to £2bn to quantum, including £1bn to buy large-scale quantum computers. In the same months UK companies raised their biggest rounds yet. The sector is small, but its leaders are building factories, opening US offices and hiring. This brief covers 56 companies and profiles the 11 that are spending.
Government has turned from funder to buyer. The ten-year National Quantum Strategy put £2.5bn behind the sector from 2024. In June 2025 the Industrial Strategy added £670m for quantum computing, and in March 2026 a package of up to £2bn followed, with £1bn to procure large-scale machines by the early 2030s. The first procurement competition, ProQure, opened in March with contracts of up to £14m each.
Private money has followed. Oxford Quantum Circuits raised £260m in June, Quantum Motion $160m in May and Nu Quantum $60m in December, the largest Series A for a UK quantum company. Consolidation has started as well: IonQ bought Oxford Ionics for $1.075bn, Oxford Instruments sold its quantum hardware business to Quantum Design, and laser maker M Squared went into administration.
Commercial use is still early. HSBC and IBM reported a 34% improvement in predicting bond trade fills, and AstraZeneca is running chemistry research with IBM at Hartree. For anyone selling into the sector, the buyers today are the quantum companies themselves rather than their customers.
What’s inside.
Building the computers
Hardware companies, each betting on a different type of qubit. They hold the largest budgets in the sector and are the most likely to win government procurement contracts.
£260m Series C (Bullhound Capital, 3 Jun 2026). Systems running in the UK, US, Japan and Spain, including a quantum and AI data centre in New York with Digital Realty and NVIDIA. Targets 200 error-corrected qubits by 2028.
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In the full briefing$160m Series C (DCVC and Kembara, 7 May 2026), London. Delivered the first commercial silicon quantum computer to the National Quantum Computing Centre and reached stage B of DARPAs benchmarking programme.
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In the full briefingOxford. Delivered the UKs only operational 100-qubit system to the national centre in March. Announced a new Oxford innovation centre and manufacturing hub in May that triples UK capacity.
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In the full briefingAcquired for $1.075bn (completed Sep 2025). IonQ has said it will expand its Oxford workforce and announced a Cambridge centre with a 256-qubit system in March. IonQ is guiding to $280m to $290m revenue this year.
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In the full briefingNetworking, error correction and software
The layers that make quantum computers useful. Smaller teams than the hardware firms, but two of the three opened US headquarters last month.
Components, sensing and the supply chain
The suppliers to the computer builders, plus the first quantum products selling outside computing. Smaller budgets, but quick decisions.
Also worth a call
More of the sector worth a call: a trapped-ion scale-up with a German contract, component and software firms, and companies whose status is changing after acquisitions and administrations.
More from the list.
| Company | Sector | Based | Staff |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | Consumer Goods - Electronics | Winchester | 345,152 |
| Technology | New York | 342,363 | |
| Hitachi Americas LTD. | Technology | Tokyo | 56,077 |
| Hitachi Energy | Industry & Manufacturing | Slough | 36,168 |
| Edwards Vacuum | Automotive | Worcester | 4,535 |
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