Securing the capital to manufacture quantum processors using the same fabs that produce billions of mobile chips.
The UK-based startup Quantum Motion has secured $160 million in Series C funding to accelerate the development of silicon-based quantum processors. This investment, backed by Sony Innovation Fund and National Grid Partners, signals a pivotal shift in the industry toward architectures that can be manufactured using standard CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) processes.
While superconducting qubits (used by IBM and Google) require massive dilution refrigerators and suffer from "wiring complexity" as they scale, silicon spin qubits are tiny—roughly the size of a single transistor. This allows for a much higher qubit density on a single chip. Furthermore, Quantum Motion’s design is 1,000 times more energy-efficient than superconducting models, significantly lowering the barrier for data center integration.
By leveraging existing semiconductor fabs, the company aims to bypass the "cleanroom bottleneck" that has slowed quantum progress. Instead of building specialized, multi-billion dollar quantum-only facilities, Quantum Motion can tape out its designs at established high-volume foundries like TSMC or GlobalFoundries.
One of the primary technical hurdles for silicon qubits has been cross-talk—the unwanted interaction between adjacent qubits during gates. Quantum Motion utilizes a proprietary isolated-well architecture that effectively "shields" individual spin states. In recent tests, the company demonstrated two-qubit gate fidelities exceeding 99.5%, a critical threshold for error correction.
The funding will be used to build a full-stack quantum computer prototype that integrates classical control electronics directly onto the quantum die. This monolithic integration is the only viable path to the millions of qubits required for fault-tolerant applications. As James Palles-Dimmock, CEO of Quantum Motion, noted, "We are no longer asking if we can build a quantum computer; we are now asking how fast we can mass-produce them."