Silicon Spin Qubits: Companies, Startups & Research

Intel Corporation, Diraq, Quantum Motion and Quobly are among the companies developing silicon spin-qubit hardware. Intel works on silicon devices using semiconductor manufacturing processes; Quantum Motion develops silicon-CMOS processors and array readout; Diraq is advancing a silicon-spin quantum computer; and Quobly is developing silicon quantum technologies with CEA-Leti. Equal1 works on Si/SiGe quantum-dot arrays.

Quantum Motion, Quobly and Equal1 are listed silicon spin-qubit startups, and Diraq is also active in the field. Quantum Motion develops silicon-CMOS processors and readout; Quobly is advancing a silicon spin-qubit processor program; and Equal1 works on Si/SiGe arrays. Diraq is developing silicon-spin hardware and plans to deploy a computer in an Equinix data center.

The research cohort includes 96 organizations, with named contributors such as the University of New South Wales, the Technical University of Delft, University Grenoble Alpes and Argonne National Laboratory. Their work spans Si/SiGe device noise, tunable two-qubit interactions, fabrication and material disorder. imec also contributes through silicon MOS device fabrication processes and quantum-dot research.

Grant funding totals $71,821,220 across 46 grants since 2020. Startup rounds provide additional signals of commercial investment: Equal1 raised $60 million in January 2026, and Diraq secured a $20 million round in July 2026. These are individual examples rather than a combined estimate of all funding for the field.

Among the latest listed rounds, Diraq secured $20 million in July 2026, while Equal1 raised $60 million in January 2026. Quobly also announced a $150 million raise in June 2026. The reported rounds indicate investment in silicon-based processor development and deployment, although they do not by themselves establish technical maturity or commercial performance.

IMEC has the largest listed patent-holder count, with 2 patents. Copenhagen University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boeing Company, Technical University of Delft, Globalfoundries, STMicroelectronics and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation each have 1 listed patent. These counts identify the named holders in the patent-holder data; they do not describe the scope or commercial status of each patent.

Patent activity is down: the field has 18 patents in the 24-month window, and patent growth is -71.4% for the last 12 months compared with the previous 12 months. Publications also declined, with 118 in the last year and growth of -8.5%. These indicators show slower recent activity, but do not on their own measure technical progress or future investment.

Recent developments include Equal1’s October 2026 characterization of gate operations in Si/SiGe arrays at high temperature and a July 2026 report of coherent control in a foundry-fabricated SiMOS device by the University of New South Wales, imec and Diraq. Other recent research addresses charge-noise analysis, neural-network-based automatic tuning and spin shuttling for connectivity.

The main approaches are silicon MOS quantum dots, Si/SiGe quantum dots, donor spin qubits and hole spin qubits. MOS and Si/SiGe devices use gate-defined dots, with integration and disorder as key trade-offs. Donor qubits use dopant atoms, making placement and array control important challenges. Hole spins offer electrical control through spin-orbit coupling, with performance dependent on device design and variability.

Quantum processors are the largest listed application, with 237 documents and 19.4% growth. Other mapped applications include quantum sensing, with 89 documents; quantum networking, with 62 and 21.4% growth; and quantum simulation, with 28. These categories describe areas of activity, not proof that silicon spin-qubit systems are already deployed for each application.