The Distributed Quantum Computing industry

??th of March 2026

abstract

Distributed quantum computing is no longer a purely academic idea. Over the past few years, we've witnessed the arrival of a growing industrial ecosystem exploring how quantum processors might eventually operate as networked systems rather than isolated machines. Some players are focusing entirely on the infrastructure required to interconnect quantum devices. Others approach the problem from the software side, building compilers, orchestration layers, and distributed execution frameworks. Meanwhile, large technology companies are positioning themselves to provide the networking backbone that a future quantum internet may require. In this post I will attempt to capture a screenshot of the newly emerging Distributed Quantum Computing industry. The categorization below reflects my own interpretation of each company's main focus. In practice, the boundaries are blurry. Many organizations work across multiple layers of the stack, e.g. hardware companies are also developing software tools. Let's dive in.

Pure play DQC

Pure play DQC companies are those whose primary mission is to build the hardware and software infrastructure for distributed quantum computing / related applications such as the quantum internet. They can include both quantum networking and quantum computing companies. I divide them into two teams: hardware and software.

Hardware

Qunnect

KaHyPar hypergraph partitioning visualisation — Portion of the GothamQ network created by Qunnect and Cisco in New York City. The nodes are connected by 17.6 km of standard telecom grade fiber cable that run under the city streets with all the potential noise sources of a city. Qunnect claims this network marks the movement of quantum networking devices out of the lab to real industrial applications world (from what I gather, they are right). Taken from Quantum Computing Report by GQI.

Qunnect is the first quantum networking infrastructure company I even came accross, and perhaps one of the very first in the field. It's a Brooklyn startup aiming to build deployable hardware capable of distributing entanglement over existing fiber networks (aka they do quantum networking). They are prettu focused on real world deployability, a lot of their hardware operates at room temperature and is designed to integrate with standard telecommunications infrastructure rather than laboratory environments. Their main product line, the Carina suite, bundles the core components required to run a quantum network into rack-mountable units. This includes entangled photon sources, quantum memory, photon detectors, synchronization electronics and control software. In essence, the goal is to make quantum networking hardware look and behave like standard telecom equipment. Over the past few years Qunnect has focused heavily on field demonstrations. Their GothamQ network in New York distributes entanglement across 17.6 km of deployed fiber connecting sites in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The system combines Qunnect’s hardware with Cisco’s orchestration software and has demonstrated metro-scale entanglement swapping under real urban conditions. Beyond New York, their technology is also being tested in Berlin with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs, at CERN’s quantum networking laboratory, and in several US research testbeds. The company is still relatively small (I believe under 50 employees) and has raised roughly $20M in funding across funding rounds, but it has positioned itself as one of the most visible players trying to move quantum networking out of physics labs and into operational infrastructure, collaborating with giants such as Cisco and Deutsche Telekom.

Nu Quantum

The apple of everyone’s eye in the distributed quantum computing space. Nu Quantum is currently the most heavily funded startup in this part of the industry and, perhaps surprisingly it is European.

More focused on inter-quantum computer networking than long-distance quantum communication, Nu Quantum is a Cambridge-based startup developing hardware. They are betting for that future hardware to be distributed and making some sweet marketing claims around it.

To enable this the company is developing what they call a Quantum Networking Unit (QNU). The device effectively acts as a network interface for quantum computers, converting stationary qubits into photonic qubits that can be transmitted through optical fibers and used to generate entanglement between processors. In other words, they are trying to build the quantum equivalent of a network card. Just like classical servers use network interfaces to communicate inside a datacenter, future quantum processors may rely on QNUs to connect to other quantum processors through photonic links. Nu Quantum does not build the processors themselves. Instead they focus on the photonic interconnect layer that allows those processors to talk to each other. Their hardware is designed to interface with a range of qubit platforms and is currently being explored with several hardware partners including Rigetti and Oxford Ionics, as well as within the UK National Quantum Computing Centre ecosystem. The company has grown rapidly over the past few years within the Cambridge quantum ecosystem and now employs roughly on the order of a hundred people. Alongside strong UK backing they have also received support from European initiatives and Spanish innovation programs, recently expanding operations to Madrid. They also have ties with Cisco, BT, Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital and Tokyo Electron. Interestingly, Nu Quantum is also among the few industrial groups exploring how quantum error correction might work in distributed architectures (they love their Floquet codes).

QphoX

But what do I do if my qubits (ehem ehem superconducting) don't like to be converted into photons (or, you know, emit them naturally when de-exciting)? Most quantum networking proposals rely on optical photons traveling through fiber. Platforms such as trapped ions or neutral atoms can naturally emit photons and are therefore relatively easy to integrate into photonic networks. Superconducting qubits, however, operate in the microwave domain. They communicate using microwave photons which cannot travel long distances and are extremely sensitive to thermal noise. This makes direct networking of superconducting processors essentially impossible without an intermediate conversion step. In comes QphoX, a Dutch spinout from TU Delft (arguably one of, if not the best, schools out there for quantum networking). QphoX aims to build quantum transducers capable of converting microwave photons into optical photons and back again. Their devices rely on optomechanical systems that couple microwave resonators, mechanical oscillators and optical cavities to coherently convert quantum signals between the two regimes. Aka they are trying to connect superconducting qubits to quantum networks (aiming to overcome perhaps the only caveat on the road to field monopoly for superconducting qubits). The company employs over 150 people (I can't quite tell how many are permanent) and has reached about $26 million in funding, but has quickly attracted attention from several hardware groups exploring distributed architectures. Honestly no wonder, without this type of tech superconducting qubits can say goodbye to scalability.

Software

Aliro

still doing networking?

Qoro

note that I have worked with the founders and do wish them all the best talk about parallelism work

Wellinq

talk about compiler work

Quantum Computing companies dabbling in DQC

Photonic Quantum computing: it's claim to DQC

Xanadu

claim 1st dqc computer, true? - probs overstated

PsiQuantum

fault-tolerant architecture implicitly assumes photonic networking. - not enough explore more do they claim dqc??

Photonic Inc

took me by crazy surprise a few weeks ago

IONQ

Acquired networking and aiming for dqc setup https://www.ionq.com/news/ionq-announces-intention-to-acquire-lightsynq-expediting-quantum-computing

Giants stringing DQC

Cisco

big collaboratior: nu quantum, ibm, and qunnect collabs - defo seems to wanna be the cisco of the quantum era (haha pun) it is the place I started my journey thus I have a lot of love for the company and researchers there but that feels like it was eons ago and all in the the plantilla has seen a lot of changes so like many of you I am just privy to the public info let's dive into it: explain how the cisco R&D offshot is kinda separate and they do both q and ai they have the cali lab - where they have output: 1 2 3 mention what they have and that ahem ahem even if U asked for it still not available

Nvidia

more from the offloading perspective (hpc overlap)

IBM

clearly needs it - goal since heron, has openly collaborated with Cisco

Toshiba

Oh how they love their QKD " We’re Quantum Security Pioneers Toshiba has been at the forefront of quantum computing technology since 1999. Our solutions underpin the world’s first quantum-secured metro network, and we’ve created a quantum-safe communication platform that makes existing data-carrying networks safe from attack by quantum computers, without any compromise to performance. We’ve achieved a series of world firsts in quantum technology deployment, developing quantum-safe and future-proof network communications infrastructures that can protect data from any threat – even those posed by quantum computers. " - quote taken directly from theyr website: https://www.toshiba.eu/quantum/ it is clear they are pouring £££ in the cambridge labs but the question of whereas QKD is the strat arises the XXX INSERT THING US GOV SAYING QKD NOT PATH FOWARD XXX is still very much in the air, and altho I personally find it a snake eating logic the sentiment remains that quantum networking doesn't want to stay in the QKD world.

Fujitsu

focused more on collab q and classical devices

Junyper??

-- still looking into this?? clearly something is there: https://www.juniper.net/documentation/us/en/software/junos/pki/topics/concept/get-started-with-pqc.html - even if just crypto??

BT

I keep meeting the BT people at NQCC Hackathons (explain briefly what that is) so i digged a bit into their quantum range

My honest thoughts

The quantum computing industry landscape is clearly oversubcribed. Not because there are enough people moving it forward and doing meaningfull work to bring about this incredible technology. But because of the infamous qubit wars: we have too many different providers building these specialized HPC units which will always be relatively rare. We won't need 50 different quantum computer providers, what we need is probably 10-20 quantum computers around the world that work well. Those are different asks, and perhaps the early stage competition of having 50 providers now will push us towards that future. I hope it will. But what i genuinely do believe is true, is that these devices will always be more useful in distributed frameworks. This is the case already with HPC and the aspects that make it so are even more pronounced in the quantum world (for instance the inability to control noise past a certain scale). Therefore Distributon is in many ways the future horizon for this field, and as such companies that do not have it as a goal will be outpaced. If quantum devices do come to be, I do think Carmen's quote will be right. "INSER QUOTE"