PensionDanmark announced it has invested DKK70m (€9.4m) in quantum computing Atom Computing – mirroring an investment from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) which led to the California-based firm start-up vowing to establish its European headquarters in the Nordic country.

The DKK330bn (€44.2bn) blue-collar labour-market pension fund said the annual global commercial potential for quantum computers was estimated at more than $100bn (€90bn).

Peter Stensgaard Mørch, PensionDanmark’s chief executive officer, said: “The link between Atom Computing’s promising machine power and the Danish quantum environment holds great potential, which we would like to support.

“We see quantum solutions as part of the future, and it is obvious that with Denmark’s scientific traditions in the field, we are reaching for a place in the international vangard of this,” he said.

EIFO announced back in June that it is investing DKK70m in Atom Computing, with the US firm saying that on the basis of that investment, it had chosen Denmark as the location of its European headquarters.

Stensgaard Mørch said: “Quantum computers can open up a whole new world of solutions, and with this investment we are giving our members the opportunity to share in the returns from this potential paradigm shift for the benefit of their pension savings.”

Last week, Microsoft announced it was collaborating with Atom Computing to “build the world’s most powerful quantum machine”.

In October 2023, Atom Computing said it had created the first gate-based quantum computing platform in the world with a capacity of over 1,000 qubits – units of quantum information which can interact together and solve complex tasks that are very challenging for traditional supercomputers.

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