IQM, already a European leader in quantum computing, is on the verge of its biggest milestone yet.
But first the Finnish quantum firm must pass a crucial test at the end of the month, when Real Asset Acquisition Corp. shareholders decide whether to approve a merger with IQM. If it passes, the combined company will trade on the Nasdaq in New York and Helsinki under the ticker IQMX, marking the first time a European quantum firm has listed on a major U.S. exchange.
"The ultimate goal is to build a sustainable, healthy, growing business which stands on its own feet, but there's still some steps in between," IQM CEO Jan Goetz said in an interview with Barron's.
Growth relies heavily on a company's ability to secure fresh funding. Building and scaling physical quantum computers is an extremely capital-intensive business, meaning a dominant market position doesn't automatically translate to profitability.
IQM is an undisputed leader in on-premises system sales for gate-based machines, with 23 sold to date. That puts the firm ahead of IBM, whose massive fleet of quantum computers is primarily accessible only over the cloud.
The next frontier is the data-center market, where IQM has already started making sales. In April, Poland's Galaxy Systemy Informatyczne became the first private company to purchase an IQM computer.
"It's about the price of operation, which basically means the electricity bill in the end," Goetz explained. "For a data center, you buy machines in the beginning -- this is where you invest -- but then most of the costs come from the electricity bill down the line."
He believes pairing IQM's superconducting quantum technology with classical processors will not only speed up the time to solution, but cut power consumption through greater efficiency. In the long term, quantum systems are expected to live alongside classical processors in data centers to solve complex problems in tandem.
While IQM has experienced early success, the ecosystem is still taking shape. Like other pure plays, or companies focusing their efforts solely on quantum, IQM has yet to turn a yearly profit and continues to burn through cash.
To offset these losses, IQM is leaning on a familiar quantum-sector playbook: a blank-check merger, which usually guarantees a faster route to the public market and much-needed capital.
Beyond raising capital, listing on the Nasdaq is IQM's play for a U.S. presence. It's a timely expansion, following a $2 billion federal injection into the domestic quantum sector -- a push so aggressive it even saw the U.S. government taking direct equity stakes in smaller developers.
"It's an interesting development because in Europe, we've always had this," Goetz said. In IQM's case, "we already have governments on the cap table. We have the European Commission, we have the Finnish government, we have the German government."
Goetz ultimately welcomes the shift in policy.
"Overall, I think it shows the strategic importance of the technology," he said. "Government engagement like this shows that even at the highest level, there's trust this technology will deliver."
Finland is easily overshadowed by the U.S. and China in the global quantum race. Beijing even designated the technology as a national priority in its latest Five-Year Plan, aiming to make quantum computers widely available by 2030.
But the Nordic country has taken significant steps to further the development of quantum systems. Goetz noted that when the Finnish president visited the White House in October, quantum technology was at the very top of the agenda.
In a way, IQM -- which spun out of two federally backed institutions, Finland's Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre -- has become a flag-bearer for European deep-tech funding.
That reputation is about to be tested in the U.S. market, where the company can already lean on a roster of supportive customers. Instead of just renting cloud access, IQM sells physical hardware directly to research institutions. One notable customer is Germany's Jülich Supercomputing Centre, which separately purchased a D-Wave Advantage System last year.
The focus on rigorous, lab-validated hardware stems from the founders' own backgrounds. Goetz, a physicist by trade, was working as a researcher at Aalto University when he and three colleagues ultimately decided to spin out a company, having realized that university labs lacked the infrastructure to scale their systems.
"This was really driven by scientists," Goetz explained. "And we were just distributing roles based on what we thought everyone's strengths were. My role was supposed to be the CEO, since I did a lot of lab management."
Eight years later, IQM is at an inflection point. The market debut will be daring: On the surface, IQM risks being drowned out by building the same superconducting quantum architecture championed by much larger, deeply entrenched rivals like IBM and Alphabet's Google.
Goetz, however, views the competitive landscape through a much longer lens.
"It's a marathon, not a sprint, that will go on for decades," he said. "The question is who has the firepower, but also the breadth to do it for the long fun. This means we need to advance the technology -- the whole community needs to advance the technology."
The CEO likened the current competitive landscape to the market for high-performance computing, which is dominated by several names: Lenovo, Dell, HP, and the like.
"It's not a winner-takes-all game, right? This is not how compute works, " Goetz said. "And this is the base assumption we also take for quantum, so there may be a handful of leading players. And our goal and the vision, obviously, is to be one of those globally leading players."
A rising tide may lift all boats, but Goetz expects the race to produce some surprising winners.
"It may not be the scientifically best technology, but it will be the technology that customers choose," he said.
All signs point to Real Asset Acquisition shareholders approving the transaction next week. Institutional investors have shown confidence in the deal; in June, strong demand pushed the private investment in public equity commitment to $146 million from an original $134 million.
To capitalize on this buzz, IQM hosted its inaugural Capital Markets Day in New York on June 15, showcasing its industry clout alongside partners Nvidia and Amazon Web Services.
In a market where anyone can be a winner, don't count IQM out. By running its own race, this Nordic flag-bearer might just provide the quantum computing sector with its next great surprise.
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