UNSW Sydney quantum computing spinout Diraq has banked $20 million from the federal authorities’s Nationwide Reconstruction Fund.
The fairness, lower than 5% of the $466 million the government poured into US-based PsiQuantum, which is now running several months behind schedule on plans to build its Brisbane facility, to construct Australia’s first quantum laptop, places Diraq within the race for gold, with plans to ship its first product by 2029, a quantum laptop able to real quantum benefit.
The corporate lately launched operations in Melbourne, along with two hubs in Sydney, alongside US operations in Palo Alto, Boston and Chicago.
Diraq was based by Andrew Dzurak, a professor in quantum engineering at UNSW, in 2022. He led the staff that constructed the first quantum logic gate in silicon in 2015 and the brand new mechanisms they’ve developed are the results of greater than 20 years of analysis.
Diraq at the moment employs greater than 70 employees and PhD college students in Australia. The brand new capital will increase the headcount with jobs in analysis, improvement, and commercialisation.
The NRF funding is a part of an ongoing $75 million increase. The extra $20m takes the full raised by Diraq previous US$150m together with government funding.
Diraq final raised a $15m in mid-2025, and a $10.5m in Series A2 extension in June 2024.
CSIRO-backed deep tech VC Principal Sequence, Uniseed, NewSouth Improvements, France’s Quantonation, Singapore’s ICM International Funds, and US fund Morgan Creek Digital are amongst its traders. Hostplus, UniSuper, NGS Tremendous and Taronga Ventures are additionally on the cap desk.
Dzurak, Diraq’s CEO mentioned years of breakthrough analysis is transitioning right into a industrial actuality that can redefine future computing and the NRF funding helps construct a sovereign, superior manufacturing capability.
“This funding arrives as Australia builds its energy in essential know-how infrastructure, significantly inside our booming information centre sector,” he mentioned.
“Diraq’s quantum computer systems are natively designed to combine seamlessly with present information centres, providing a novel, homegrown benefit. By leveraging Australian quantum experience, native companies—from power suppliers optimising the facility grid to defence and pharmaceutical innovators—can acquire a decisive aggressive benefit within the international market, making certain Australia captures the total financial worth of its innovations.”
Diraq’s quantum computer systems retailer data in silicon-based quantum bits, often known as “qubits” and the startup has developed proprietary know-how that allows thousands and thousands of qubits to be positioned on a single chip, to create compact computer systems to minimise the intensive cooling amenities required – quantum must function at near absolute zero (−273.15 °C) – to make quantum computing extra cost- and energy-efficient.
