Trump administration in talks to take stakes in quantum-computing firms, WSJ reports

(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is in talks with several quantum-computing companies to take equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Companies including IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum are discussing the government becoming a shareholder as part of the agreements, the report said, adding that the discussions include minimum funding awards from Washington of $10 million each. Other companies such as Quantum Computing and Atom Computing are considering similar arrangements, the Journal added. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. A U.S. Commerce official told Reuters in an emailed statement that the department is not currently negotiating with any of the companies. Earlier this year, Trump said the U.S. would take a 10% stake in Intel that converts government grants into an equity share, the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America. Other deals include an agreement for the Pentagon to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company, MP Materials to boost output of rare earth magnets and the U.S. government's winning a "golden share" with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Japan's Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel. Ion declined to comment while the White House, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Atom Computing and Quantum Computing did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Paul Dabbar, a former quantum-computing executive and Energy Department official, is leading the funding discussions with companies in the industry, the WSJ report said, citing people familiar with the matter. In February, Microsoft unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is "years, not decades" away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed. (Reporting by Devika Nair and Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Lincoln Feast.)

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