‘Bold and ambitious’: Blackbird and Australia’s tech industry backs $1bn taxpayer quantum computer

Australia’s tech industry has backed a $1bn taxpayer investment into building a world-first quantum computer.

Blackbird general partner Michael Tolo says the taxpayer-funded investment is a ‘stunning nation building milestone’.

Australia’s tech industry has backed a $1bn taxpayer investment into building a world-first quantum computer as “bold” and “ambitious” that will sharpen the nation’s competitive edge, particularly in the materials science and drug development sectors.

Michael Tolo, general partner of venture capital giant Blackbird branded the investment from the federal and Queensland governments – which will see the computer designed and owned by an American company – as “stunning nation building milestone that entrenches our position as the global leader in quantum computing”.

“This project creates a path for Australia to capture the economic benefit of research and talent that it has helped to nurture, and for our country to build unfair advantage in the many applications that utility-scale quantum computing will enable across materials science, physics and drug development,” Mr Tolo said.

The Tech Council, meanwhile, said Australia cannot afford to be “left behind” in the quantum computing race, which it said had the potential to create a multi-billion dollar local industry by the end of the decade.

Anthony Albanese and Queensland Premier Steven Miles each announced about $470m in equity and loans to help US outfit PsiQuantum, headquartered in Palo Alto, build the yet to be developed fault-tolerant, quantum computer in Brisbane.

Industry Minister Ed Husic ­acknowledged PsiQuantum would own the computer once it was successfully built, but that Australia would get access to its computing power “for what we need or what industry needs”.

Blackbird general partner Michael Tolo. Picture: Anna Kuce.

Blackbird – which has a portfolio worth more than $7bn – is an investor of PsiQuantum, which Mr Tolo said was “Australian by heart and spirit as much as origin”.

“PsiQuantum has long flown under the radar in Australia but it has always been – and will continue to be – an Australian story. Founded by Australian academics who built upon research developed in Queensland and moved abroad as expats to test themselves against the best in the world,” Mr Tolo said.

“We fell in love with this team because of their conviction to overcome the technical challenges that lay on the critical path to scale upfront – refusing to release a system that would not be useful, and knowing that a useful system would need millions of qubits to support error-correction. PsiQuantum has been an underdog for much of its life and has forged a reputation for making courageous decisions against consensus without flinching.”

Mr Albanese said the government needed to make “bold ­investments today if we want to see a Future Made in Australia” and that he was “serious about building a strong quantum ­ecosystem.”

Crucially, Mr Tolo said it “shows the most ambitious founders around the world that Australia is the best place to scale critical technologies”.

“With prescient investment from federal and state governments over four decades, Australia has produced some of the world’s best fundamental research in quantum computing – starting in condensed matter physics and quantum optics,” he said.

“No one could have predicted that these investments would set us on the path to become the home of quantum computing but believing earlier and harder has a wonderful habit of working in our favour.”

PsiQuantum co-founder and chief executive Jeremy O’Brien said the company was founded on the conviction that quantum computing was “the most profoundly world-changing technology that humans have discovered”.

“A utility-scale quantum computer will be an invaluable tool for Australia’s critical industries to leverage,” Mr O’Brien said.

The company was founded in 2016 by Mr O’Brien, Terry Rudolph, Peter Shadbolt and Mark Thompson.

Mr Tolo said that Blackbird existed to “back wild hearts with wild ideas”. “When we first invested in PsiQuantum, we told our investors that it was hard to imagine a more compelling example of this ideology than Jeremy, Terry, Pete and Mark,” he said.

“Today, all of Australia is investing in wild hearts with wild ideas, and over the next hundred years, we hope the legacy of the announcement will be felt in the new drugs, renewable energy technologies, and processes for green ammonia and green hydrogen that we unlock with utility-scale quantum computing.”

In a statement, the Tech Council said it had long advocated direct government investing in quantum computing to “to capitalise on our strengths and create a more competitive environment for successful companies to grow from Australia”.

“We can’t be left behind – we agree with the government on that – and that means this announcement needs to mark the start of a broader uplift in funding for Australia’s quantum industry,” the Tech Council said.

“While successive Australian governments have made investments in quantum, we are facing fierce global competition, with other countries investing heavily in their own quantum sectors. This significant investment should be followed quickly by an acceleration in direct funding by governments in Australia’s quantum businesses and research organisations.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the Government on this and to ensure we deliver on the ambitions of Australia’s National Quantum Strategy.”