Australia is home to some of the world’s best quantum computing talent.
Diraq, Silicon Quantum Computing, Q-Ctrl and Quantum Brilliance are all working at the forefront of this critically important and exciting field of science and technology, helping to foster Australia’s international reputation as a quantum leader.
Yet all of these companies were overlooked in the Albanese government’s decision to invest almost a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money in American-based company PsiQuantum.
Whether it’s the secrecy around the deal’s commercial arrangements, the company’s research ties to controversial Chinese institutions, or the timeline of events which seems to suggest that the decision was a captain’s call, this deal has rightly attracted plenty of criticism.
Now the latest twist in the tale raises an even bigger suspicion that Labor’s commercial naivety has seen them being played for fools.
Because it turns out that Brisbane is not the only place where PsiQuantum has promised to do something special.
The Government of the American State of Illinois has just announced a US$500 million quantum computing incentive package for PsiQuantum to build a quantum computer in Chicago.
PsiQuantum will also be the anchor tenant at a quantum specific corporate park in Chicago, which will benefit from an additional US$500 million investment from the Illinois Government.
Of course PsiQuantum is perfectly entitled to do whatever deals it wants to do, and to pursue further commercial deals in the United States. Indeed, as an American company, it is hardly surprising that it would do so.
But it does raise some very obvious questions about what Industry and Science minister Ed Husic may or may not have negotiated to protect against the risk that the value of his much trumpeted deal would be diluted by PsiQuantum doing a very similar deal with another government.
After all, the Illinois Government will want to see a return on its investment. Does it now have a commitment that the world’s first fault tolerant quantum computer will be built in Chicago?
Isn’t that precisely what was promised to Brisbane?
This announcement about the Chicago deal raises some very obvious questions.
Was Cabinet made aware of the Illinois Government’s interest in building a quantum computer and corporate park of this magnitude when the Brisbane proposal was raised?
Will intellectual property from the Brisbane investment help bolster this Chicago project?
And does this announcement from PsiQuantum and the Illinois Government mean that whatever the Albanese Government thought it was getting from its deal with PsiQuantum, it is now not going to get?
Australians deserve answers to these crucial questions.
It is bad enough that Labor committed nearly one billion dollars to PsiQuantum without meeting the normal standards of transparency, probity and contestability.
It would be even worse if they did all this and did not even bother to lock in exclusivity.
Australia’s vibrant quantum sector deserves intelligent and well structured support. Labor’s approach is simply not up to the mark.
Paul Fletcher is the shadow minister for science and the arts, and the shadow minister for government services and the digital economy
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.