‘I told you so’ moment for Albo as $1b computer bet pays off

3 days ago 5

Opinion

September 11, 2025 — 2.34pm

What do the largest company in the world, Nvidia, our home-grown millionaires’ factory Macquarie Group and the country’s leading venture capitalist, Blackbird, have in common with the federal and Queensland governments?

You could be forgiven if your riposte was zilch. But if you answer PsiQuantum at the pub trivia night, then the meat tray is yours.

PsiQuantum co-founder and chief technologist Mark Thompson, holds up a model of a quantum chip and stands in front of a cryogenic cabinet.

So it would be unsurprising that both governments must be doing cartwheels after their combined near $1 billion investment in the US quantum computing start-up doubled in value overnight when a bunch of new investors including Macquarie and Nvidia joined the list of investors.

The updated valuation for the whole of PsiQuantum, which is trying to build a new form of computer capable of solving previously impenetrable problems, is now around $10.6 billion.

The very notion of the federal and Queensland governments being ahead of Nvidia or Macquarie at picking an IT winner feels both bizarre and a fluke.

The Albanese government, of course, won’t portray its luck like this. Rather, it will be its ‘I told you so’ moment.

The very notion of the Australian and Queensland governments being ahead of Nvidia or Macquarie at picking an IT winner feels both bizarre and a fluke.

And to be fair, former federal industry minister Ed Husic deserves some bragging rights, given he was roundly beaten up when the government took this big investment swing a little over a year ago.

At the time, the government’s investment looked as much oversized as it did risky.

The federal opposition labelled its investment process as opaque and even sought the help of the auditor general to undertake a probe into how Husic et al landed on this particular quantum computing hopeful ahead of a conga line of others looking for some government money (loans and equity) under its Future Made in Australia Act.

PsiQuantum is the kind of high-risk investment that would sit more comfortably in the Future Fund rather than a direct investment made by governments. So it’s not surprising the Qatar sovereign fund and the Singaporean government’s investment fund joined its list of new investors.

Ed Husic as he announced the investment in PsiQuantum last year.

Sovereign funds and venture capital funds have an investment model that fosters a scattergun approach to investing – putting relatively small amounts of money into a range of high-risk start-ups in the hope that down the line one or two will be 10 or even a 100 times bigger.

But direct investment from governments needs to meet a higher watermark.

There is no doubt that cracking the code to actually build a quantum computer is next-level nirvana – but no one has done it yet.

The promise of quantum computing lies in its capacity to solve complex problems exponentially faster than traditional computers.

For the nerds interested in the details, quantum computing is an advanced form of computing that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to rapidly increase the processing of information. Where classical computing relies on binary bits (0s or 1s), quantum computing uses quantum bits – or qubits – that can exist in multiple states simultaneously.

I hope that clears up the science. For those who find it baffling, suffice to say PsiQuantum chief executive Jeremy O’Brien reckons his company is a way down the track – and it’s now looking to build a cutting-edge world-leading facility in Brisbane, of all places.

It certainly helped that a couple of the company’s founders were locals, even though the head office is in Silicon Valley.

It would be premature for the Queensland or federal government to claim vindication of their investment.

And it should be noted that for the likes of Nvidia and even Macquarie, the funds spent on investing in PsiQuantum would barely be noticed or move the dial on their overall returns.

However, there will be plenty of scrutiny on the Australian government if this investment goes pear-shaped.

But for now, the federal and Queensland governments look like they are in illustrious company.

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