The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on September 8, 2026, that it had finalized CHIPS and Science Act research and development awards of up to $100 million each with D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, Quantinuum, and PsiQuantum. It also finalized an award of up to $375 million with the contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries for research toward a domestic quantum foundry.
In securities filings, the four publicly traded recipients, D-Wave, Rigetti, Quantinuum, and GlobalFoundries, disclosed agreements to issue shares to Commerce. Commerce makes between 44% and 56% of the $100 million awards to D-Wave, Rigetti, and Quantinuum available at the start and pays the remainder only as each company meets project milestones.
Commerce set the equity condition in letters of intent with nine companies and announced the letters, worth $2.013 billion in total, on May 21. In a letter of intent, the parties outline a deal’s terms before signing a final agreement.
On May 21, the department said it would receive “a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company” as a condition for receiving the funds “to enhance the return for the U.S. taxpayer.”
Terms for D-Wave, Rigetti, and Quantinuum
D-Wave, Rigetti, and Quantinuum each signed an other transaction agreement with Commerce on September 4, the award date, according to their filings. An other transaction agreement is a federal funding instrument that is not subject to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the rules for standard government procurement contracts. Rigetti signed through its subsidiary Rigetti & Co, LLC.
Rigetti and Quantinuum signed securities issuance agreements with Commerce on September 8. D-Wave signed its agreement the same day, it reported in an amended filing on September 9.
Rigetti agreed to issue Commerce 7,739,938 shares at an implied price of $12.92, according to its filing. Commerce makes $43.9 million available on or as soon as practicable after the award date. It will release further installments of $29.9 million and $26.2 million only if it determines, “to its satisfaction in its sole discretion,” that Rigetti has met the milestones for each.
If Rigetti misses a required project activity date, Commerce may demand repayment of all amounts paid, subject to cure and forbearance provisions. Under such provisions, a company gets time to fix a missed obligation.
Rigetti will use the award to compress the electronics that measure its qubits into an integrated, miniaturized package and to expand cryogenic capacity with a new cryostat architecture. A cryostat is the refrigerator that keeps superconducting qubits near absolute zero.
In its amended filing, D-Wave reported that it had issued Commerce 7,095,721 shares at $14.093 each. The price is 15% below the lowest of D-Wave’s closing share prices on the day Commerce first sent a draft letter of intent, the day the letter was signed, and the award date.
According to D-Wave’s original filing, Commerce will pay D-Wave $53.6 million shortly after the award date and $9.1 million, $16.7 million, and $20.4 million as D-Wave meets three milestones, with a final $0.3 million at completion. The figures are rounded, and the award totals $100 million. D-Wave wrote that the milestones relate generally to installing tools and equipment and to fabricating prototype quantum processing units.
Quantinuum disclosed that Commerce received 2,369,528 of its Class A shares on September 8. Under the May letter of intent, Quantinuum was to issue Commerce equity “in the full amount of the award,” priced at the lower of its initial public offering price discounted by 20% and its closing price on the award date discounted by 15%. Quantinuum disclosed no price. Valued at $100 million, the shares would be priced at about $42.20 each.
According to the same filing, Quantinuum had $56.0 million available on or about the award date, with $32.0 million and $12.0 million to follow as it meets milestones. It will use the award for integrated photonics, cryogenic control chips, and optical components for trapped-ion systems.
PsiQuantum and GlobalFoundries
PsiQuantum, a private company, said it had signed definitive documentation with Commerce but gave no signing date. It said it will use the award, with its own co-investment, for work on optical switches, high-temperature single-photon detectors, and advanced packaging. PsiQuantum did not mention equity in its announcement.
GlobalFoundries said it is eligible for up to $375 million over five years, tied to specified milestones, to build out its Quantum Technology Solutions business. In a Form 6-K filed on September 8, the company disclosed that it had signed a securities issuance agreement with Commerce on September 3 and will issue the department 9,907,399 ordinary shares at $37.85 each. At that price, the shares come to about $375 million.
Voting rights and legal risk
D-Wave disclosed that Commerce generally cannot vote its shares, except on matters that would adversely affect the rights of that class of stock or on mergers.
If Commerce terminates D-Wave’s or Quantinuum’s agreement for convenience, the company may buy back, for $1.00 in total, the shares tied to award money that it did not receive or that it returned. In a termination for convenience, the government ends an agreement without any fault by the company.
Under Quantinuum’s agreement, inventions from the project must be “predominantly produced or licensed for production in the United States” during the project and for 10 years after it. In its risk factors, D-Wave wrote that the government “could determine in the future that all or a portion of the transactions were unauthorized, void or voidable.”
Deadlines
D-Wave, Rigetti, and Quantinuum have until September 4, 2031, the fifth anniversary of the award date, to complete their milestones. D-Wave disclosed that its agreement can be extended. Commerce announced no final awards on September 8 for IBM, Atom Computing, Infleqtion, and Diraq, the other four companies with letters of intent.
Update, November 12, 2026: On September 14, GlobalFoundries registered Commerce’s 9,907,399 shares for resale. On September 16, Commerce finalized an award of up to $1 billion with Anderon, a newly formed IBM subsidiary.
