Quantum Benchmarking Initiative Phase B

The Quantum Benchmarking Initiative Phase B is a grant from DARPA that funds rigorous research and development planning by advanced quantum computing companies working toward utility-scale quantum operation.

Selected through a competitive multi-stage evaluation process, Phase B participants spend one year developing detailed R&D plans, identifying technical risks, and specifying risk-reduction prototypes for fault-tolerant quantum computers. The program aims to verify whether any quantum computing approach can achieve computational value exceeding its cost by 2033. Awards range from $1 million to $5 million.

Eligibility is currently limited to the 11 companies already selected for Stage B, though new entrants may apply to Stage A via DARPA-PA-26-02-02 by September 30, 2026.

Stage B selection | DARPA Department of War organization. QBI: Quantum Benchmarking Initiative As of Nov. 6, 2025, DARPA has selected 11 companies to enter the second stage (Stage B) of the agency’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), which aims to rigorously verify and validate whether any quantum computing approach can achieve utility-scale operation — meaning its computational value exceeds its cost — by the year 2033.

As QBI continues, DARPA anticipates additional teams to advance to stages A, B, and C, as described below. Companies have entered the evaluation process on varying timelines, resulting in staggered advancement across the three stages. During the six-month Stage A, companies characterized their unique concepts for creating a useful, fault-tolerant quantum computer.

Now, in the yearlong Stage B, they will develop and detail their R&D plans, including identifying and mitigating the associated risks, and specifying the necessary risk-reduction prototypes.

Companies successful in Stage B will be invited to progress to QBI’s final stage, in which a government verification and validation team will determine if their utility-scale quantum computer concept can be constructed as designed and operated as intended.

Companies selected for Stage B have described compelling technical concepts and the QBI team will scour their R&D plans to determine whether they are on track to meet not only near-term milestones, but also the ultimate objective: a useful quantum computer by 2033. A significant challenge in evaluating quantum computing development plans lies in the diversity of technological approaches.

Unlike classical computing, no single dominant architecture exists. The Stage B teams employ a wide range of quantum bit (qubit) technologies – the fundamental building blocks of a quantum computer – each with its own strengths, weaknesses, and technical hurdles. QBI is not a competition to narrow the field to a few “winners.

” Rather, the aim is to evaluate each company’s approach on its own merits. Multiple, single, or even no participants will ultimately demonstrate a path to an industrially useful quantum computer within the next eight years. Thorough evaluation is crucial to understanding the true potential of the technology.

The following companies (with their qubit technology approach) have been selected for Stage B at this time: Atom Computing : Boulder, Colorado (scalable arrays of neutral atoms) Diraq: Sydney, Australia, with operations in Palo Alto, California, and Boston, Massachusetts (silicon CMOS spin qubits) IBM: Yorktown Heights, New York (quantum computing with modular superconducting processors) IonQ: College Park, Maryland (trapped-ion quantum computing) Nord Quantique: Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada (superconducting qubits with bosonic error correction) Photonic Inc .

: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (optically-linked silicon spin qubits) Quantinuum: Broomfield, Colorado (trapped-ion quantum charged coupled device (QCCD) architecture) Quantum Motion: London, UK (MOS-based silicon spin qubits) QuEra Computing: Boston, Massachusetts (neutral atom qubits) Silicon Quantum Computing Pty.

Ltd.: Sydney, Australia (precision atom qubits in silicon) Xanadu: Toronto, Canada (photonic quantum computing) It is likely but not guaranteed that additional teams will enter Stage B in the future. DARPA will announce any additional promotion decisions after contracting with those teams is finalized.

The Stage B promotions followed an announcement that Google Quantum AI joined Stage A in September 2025, and earlier announcements that Microsoft and PsiQuantum entered the third and final phase of the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program. US2QC is a pilot effort that was expanded to become QBI in 2024.

Both companies were participating in the second phase of US2QC when the QBI expansion was announced. The final Phase of US2QC has the same technical goals as Stage C of QBI: verification and validation of an industrially useful quantum computer.

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