A few weeks ago the federal and Queensland governments announced kinda out of nowhere they're giving/investing a billion dollars to a US startup called PsiQuantum to build a "useful" quantum computer in Brisbane - something IBM, Google and major universities haven't been able to do, but our government reckons some random US startup can achieve. Senate estimates last night revealed that the government's due diligence and negotiation with PsiQuantum began in early 2023, months before it established a secretive EoI process (had to be invited to participate and sign an NDA) for other quantum computing companies to throw their hat in the ring for the $1b that PsiQuantum ultimately "won". Very grubby process for what is an insane amount of taxpayer money for a private company in an extremely speculative business with a high chance of failure.
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