The US government's Commerce Department has engaged a number of quantum computing companies in talks with a view to taking equity stakes in the businesses in exchange for federal funding.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, organizations including IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and D-Wave have discussed receiving minimum funding awards of $10 million in exchange for the government becoming a shareholder.

Quantum Computing Inc. and Atom Computing are considering similar arrangements, the report noted.

The move would mimic deals already made by the US government earlier this year – in July, the Department of Defense acquired a 15 percent stake in rare earth magnet company MP Materials.

The following month, the government invested $8.9 billion in Intel in exchange for a 9.9 percent stake in the chipmaker, $5.7bn of which came from funds that would have been awarded to the company through the CHIPS Act, and $3.2bn from funds under the Secure Enclave program.

The talks with quantum computing companies are being led by Deputy Commerce Secretary Paul Dabbar, a former quantum-computing executive and Energy Department official, the WSJ reported. Dabbar co-founded Bohr Quantum Technology in 2021 and held the position of CEO for four years. In a statement to the WSJ, a Commerce Department official said Bohr wasn’t a candidate for federal funding.

However, on social media platform X, users noted that the current US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Steve Feinberg, founded and was CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, a hedge fund that purchased 2.4 million shares in IonQ in June 2025, now worth approximately $134 million.

In September 2025, IonQ appointed General John W. "Jay" Raymond, the senior managing director of Cerberus Capital Management, to its board of directors. That same month, the quantum computing company launched IonQ Federal in an effort to integrate “IonQ’s proprietary technologies to serve the US government and its allies.”