An Australian computing start-up that uses quantum building blocks a million times smaller than the government-backed PsiQuantum’s has closed a $US22 million ($33.1 million) funding round that it says puts it on track to beat its bigger rival to a commercially viable quantum computer.

The Sydney-based start-up, Diraq, has been backed by the CSIRO’s deep-tech fund Main Sequence Ventures, as well as the property-technology fund Taronga Ventures, UniSuper and the University of NSW, which spun Diraq out from its quantum computer research program in 2022.