OptQC raises ¥7 billion in Series A2 to develop 10,000‑qubit photonic processor

【Article Title】 OptQC raises ¥7 billion in Series A2 to develop 10,000‑qubit photonic processor 【Article Body】 AI TRANSLATION This article is an AI-generated translation of the original Japanese article. For the authoritative version, please refer to the original. Read the original Japanese article → (https://quantumindex.jp/optqc-series-a2-7-billion-yen-funding/) OptQC announced on August 25, 2026 that it had raised a total of ¥7 billion in a Series A2 third‑party allotment led by NTT. The funds will be used to develop a next‑generation photonic quantum processorquantum processorQuantum Processor / Quantum Processor / Quantum Processing Unit / QPUThe central part of the hardware that houses qubits and performs quantum computational operations such as quantum gates and measurements.QI NoteThe performance of a QPU cannot be judged by the number of qubits alone. Gate fidelity, connectivity, speed, error rates, and other factors must be considered together. aimed at roughly 100× the computational performance of the current system and on the order of 10,000 qubitsqubitsQubit / Quantum Bit / QubitThe basic unit of information in a quantum computer. It can represent not only 0 or 1 but also a quantum state that is a superposition of them.QI NoteHaving more qubits does not necessarily mean higher performance. Error rates, connectivity, coherence time, and the number of logical qubits are also important., and to support hiring. ✍️ Quantum Index Analysis The technical and business implications behind this announcement and evaluation points that are not obvious from the numbers or headlines alone. Read our independent analysis ↓ Overview of the announcement The round included participation from 21 organizations spanning telecommunications, electronics, aerospace, precision instruments, finance, and real estate, as well as independent venture capital firms and public institutions. Combined with OptQC’s 2025 seed round and Series A1, cumulative funds raised now total ¥9.15 billion, and total funding including awarded grants has exceeded ¥20 billion. OptQC said it will invest in a next‑generation processor following its first‑generation system, which is scheduled to start operating in July 2026. The company aims to expand the qubit count while maintaining room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure operation, increase computational performance to about 100× the current system, and reach a 10,000‑qubit scale. On recruitment, OptQC is seeking researchers and engineers in quantum optics, electrical circuits, mechanical engineering, control engineering, and software and algorithm development, as well as business development personnel. OptQC signed a capital and business alliance with NTT prior to this round and is collaborating with NTT toward practical realization of a fault‑tolerant photonic quantum computerphotonic quantum computer光量子コンピューター / Photonic Quantum Computer / Optical Quantum ComputerA quantum computer that performs quantum computation using photons or the quantum states of light as carriers of information.QI NotePhoton generation, loss, detection, and integration affect performance. One should consider not only the number of qubits but also loss rates and the performance of light sources and detectors.. Key points • Raised ¥7 billion in Series A2, with NTT as lead investor and 21 organizations participating • Total raised including prior rounds is ¥9.15 billion, and total funding including grants tops ¥20 billion • Targets for the next‑generation system are ~100× the current system’s computational performance and a 10,000‑qubit scale • Funds will be used for processor R&D and recruitment of technical and business development personnel • Through a capital and business alliance with NTT, OptQC is collaborating toward commercialization of a fault‑tolerant photonic quantum computer Technical and business implications Technically, the funding secures R&D resources for scaling photonic quantum processors to large sizes while maintaining room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure operation. However, the announcement does not specify the timeline for achieving a 10,000‑qubit scale or a 100× performance increase, the evaluation methods to be used, or concrete levels of error tolerance. On the business side, participation from a broad set of industry investors creates potential for leveraging domain expertise and test environments, but concrete joint projects and commercialization timing remain undetermined. Points to watch For the next‑generation processor, the main observation points will be when and under what evaluation conditions OptQC achieves a 10,000‑qubit scale and ~100× performance. In addition to large‑scale, room‑temperature operation, it will be important to see performance metrics that indicate progress toward error‑tolerant computation. On the business side, watch for details of the NTT collaboration and whether development and deployment use cases leveraging participating companies’ test environments materialize. ✍️ Quantum Index Analysis This ¥7 billion raise signals that OptQC, as a Japan‑based quantum hardware company, is not only investing in R&D but is entering the global scale competition for quantum hardware—and is prepared to compete. With an operational system, a substantial funding round, and a capital and business alliance with NTT, OptQC has a heightened domestic presence; at the same time, it faces the responsibility to produce results comparable to overseas vendors. However, overseas competitors have progressed to stages that cannot be measured by funding totals or physical qubitphysical qubitPhysical Qubit / Physical QubitIndividual qubits that are physically created and manipulated on a quantum processor. They are also used to form logical qubits.QI NoteA large number of physical qubits does not by itself indicate practical computational capability. Error rates, connectivity, and the number of physical qubits required per logical qubit are also important. counts alone—PsiQuantum has raised $1 billion, and Xanadu has reported real‑time error correction using logical GKP qubitsqubitsQubit / Quantum Bit / QubitThe basic unit of information in a quantum computer. It can represent not only 0 or 1 but also a quantum state that is a superposition of them.QI NoteHaving more qubits does not necessarily mean higher performance. Error rates, connectivity, coherence time, and the number of logical qubits are also important.. OptQC’s targets of “10,000 qubits” and “~100× the current system” are goals at this stage, and the NTT concept for a million‑physical‑qubit class system is part of a roadmap aimed at fiscal 2030. The next set of questions is less about simply increasing qubit counts and more about how concretely OptQC can demonstrate metrics such as loss and error rates, the size of runnable computations, operational uptime, and performance that leads to fault tolerance. If these metrics are clarified, it will be easier to evaluate OptQC on the same footing as global photonic quantum hardware vendors, beyond the label of a leading Japanese quantum startup. Related articles • OptQC names Michihiro Maeda as executive officer and CFO, strengthening financial structure for photonic quantum computer commercialization (https://en.quantumindex.jp/optqc-michihiro-maeda-cfo/) • OptQC and NTT form capital and business alliance, aiming for a million‑physical‑qubit‑class photonic quantum computer by FY2030 (https://en.quantumindex.jp/optqc-ntt-photonic-quantum-computer-partnership-2026/) • Xanadu and University of Alberta partner on quantum drug discovery research for photoreactive agent design (https://en.quantumindex.jp/xanadu-university-alberta-quantum-drug-discovery-partnership/) Source Read the original announcement (https://www.optqc.com/news/news/funding-series-a2) If you found this article useful, please consider sharing it. ──────────────────── 【AI Evaluation Request】 Evaluate the following article critically, not based on the quality of its writing, but on its **original informational value as a specialist publication**. 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OptQC announced on August 25, 2026 that it had raised a total of ¥7 billion in a Series A2 third‑party allotment led by NTT. The funds will be used to develop a next‑generation photonic quantum processorquantum processorQuantum Processor / Quantum Processor / Quantum Processing Unit / QPUThe central part of the hardware that houses qubits and performs quantum computational operations such as quantum gates and measurements.QI NoteThe performance of a QPU cannot be judged by the number of qubits alone. Gate fidelity, connectivity, speed, error rates, and other factors must be considered together. aimed at roughly 100× the computational performance of the current system and on the order of 10,000 qubitsqubitsQubit / Quantum Bit / QubitThe basic unit of information in a quantum computer. It can represent not only 0 or 1 but also a quantum state that is a superposition of them.QI NoteHaving more qubits does not necessarily mean higher performance. Error rates, connectivity, coherence time, and the number of logical qubits are also important., and to support hiring.

Overview of the announcement

The round included participation from 21 organizations spanning telecommunications, electronics, aerospace, precision instruments, finance, and real estate, as well as independent venture capital firms and public institutions. Combined with OptQC’s 2025 seed round and Series A1, cumulative funds raised now total ¥9.15 billion, and total funding including awarded grants has exceeded ¥20 billion.

OptQC said it will invest in a next‑generation processor following its first‑generation system, which is scheduled to start operating in July 2026. The company aims to expand the qubit count while maintaining room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure operation, increase computational performance to about 100× the current system, and reach a 10,000‑qubit scale.

On recruitment, OptQC is seeking researchers and engineers in quantum optics, electrical circuits, mechanical engineering, control engineering, and software and algorithm development, as well as business development personnel. OptQC signed a capital and business alliance with NTT prior to this round and is collaborating with NTT toward practical realization of a fault‑tolerant photonic quantum computerphotonic quantum computer光量子コンピューター / Photonic Quantum Computer / Optical Quantum ComputerA quantum computer that performs quantum computation using photons or the quantum states of light as carriers of information.QI NotePhoton generation, loss, detection, and integration affect performance. One should consider not only the number of qubits but also loss rates and the performance of light sources and detectors..

Key points

• Raised ¥7 billion in Series A2, with NTT as lead investor and 21 organizations participating
• Total raised including prior rounds is ¥9.15 billion, and total funding including grants tops ¥20 billion
• Targets for the next‑generation system are ~100× the current system’s computational performance and a 10,000‑qubit scale
• Funds will be used for processor R&D and recruitment of technical and business development personnel
• Through a capital and business alliance with NTT, OptQC is collaborating toward commercialization of a fault‑tolerant photonic quantum computer

Technical and business implications

Technically, the funding secures R&D resources for scaling photonic quantum processors to large sizes while maintaining room‑temperature, ambient‑pressure operation. However, the announcement does not specify the timeline for achieving a 10,000‑qubit scale or a 100× performance increase, the evaluation methods to be used, or concrete levels of error tolerance. On the business side, participation from a broad set of industry investors creates potential for leveraging domain expertise and test environments, but concrete joint projects and commercialization timing remain undetermined.

Points to watch

For the next‑generation processor, the main observation points will be when and under what evaluation conditions OptQC achieves a 10,000‑qubit scale and ~100× performance. In addition to large‑scale, room‑temperature operation, it will be important to see performance metrics that indicate progress toward error‑tolerant computation. On the business side, watch for details of the NTT collaboration and whether development and deployment use cases leveraging participating companies’ test environments materialize.

✍️ Quantum Index Analysis

This ¥7 billion raise signals that OptQC, as a Japan‑based quantum hardware company, is not only investing in R&D but is entering the global scale competition for quantum hardware—and is prepared to compete. With an operational system, a substantial funding round, and a capital and business alliance with NTT, OptQC has a heightened domestic presence; at the same time, it faces the responsibility to produce results comparable to overseas vendors.

However, overseas competitors have progressed to stages that cannot be measured by funding totals or physical qubitphysical qubitPhysical Qubit / Physical QubitIndividual qubits that are physically created and manipulated on a quantum processor. They are also used to form logical qubits.QI NoteA large number of physical qubits does not by itself indicate practical computational capability. Error rates, connectivity, and the number of physical qubits required per logical qubit are also important. counts alone—PsiQuantum has raised $1 billion, and Xanadu has reported real‑time error correction using logical GKP qubitsqubitsQubit / Quantum Bit / QubitThe basic unit of information in a quantum computer. It can represent not only 0 or 1 but also a quantum state that is a superposition of them.QI NoteHaving more qubits does not necessarily mean higher performance. Error rates, connectivity, coherence time, and the number of logical qubits are also important.. OptQC’s targets of “10,000 qubits” and “~100× the current system” are goals at this stage, and the NTT concept for a million‑physical‑qubit class system is part of a roadmap aimed at fiscal 2030.

The next set of questions is less about simply increasing qubit counts and more about how concretely OptQC can demonstrate metrics such as loss and error rates, the size of runnable computations, operational uptime, and performance that leads to fault tolerance. If these metrics are clarified, it will be easier to evaluate OptQC on the same footing as global photonic quantum hardware vendors, beyond the label of a leading Japanese quantum startup.

Related articles

• OptQC names Michihiro Maeda as executive officer and CFO, strengthening financial structure for photonic quantum computer commercialization
• OptQC and NTT form capital and business alliance, aiming for a million‑physical‑qubit‑class photonic quantum computer by FY2030
• Xanadu and University of Alberta partner on quantum drug discovery research for photoreactive agent design

Source

Read the original announcement