Intel has about 70 people on quantum and Lip-Bu Tan is betting its fabs give it an edge

[Pete]

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's appearance on the QuantumJane podcast, and it gives a clearer picture of where Intel sits in the quantum race. Tan said the company has about 70 people working on quantum and is developing silicon spin qubits. The key point is that Intel is testing whether those qubits can eventually be produced in its own fabrication plants

Spin qubits use the spin of electrons in silicon, which lets Intel reuse techniques from conventional chip manufacturing. Its Tunnel Falls chip was built with industrial transistor fabrication methods with scale and volume production in mind. Tan's argument is that working out which technology approach wins is only half the problem, and the other half is mass production. That is where he thinks a company with a serious fab plays a different role from most startups

What I appreciated is that he didn't claim spin qubits have won. He said openly that there are many methods, that people should try different approaches, and that the verdict is still out. Quantum computing is still split among superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photonics, neutral atoms and spin qubits, and nobody has a clear lead on every front

Tan is also personally backing Israeli startup Classiq, which makes software for building quantum applications without working directly with the hardware. He described their ambition as becoming the next Cadence for quantum computing, a nod to the chip design software company he used to run. Classiq was founded in 2020 and, after a $110 million Series C in May 2025 and follow-on investment from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and CDP Venture Capital, has raised up to around $200 million in total. Tan said he liked the team's technical depth and the fact they were already working with customers

He also said quantum could end up ten times bigger than AI running on classical computing, which is a big claim, while stressing that it is still very early. Seventy people is a small team for a company Intel's size. It reads to me like a long-term option on a manufacturing advantage rather than an all-in bet

From a security angle, whoever cracks mass production is the one to watch. A lab demo does not threaten anybody's keys, but a fab turning out qubit chips at volume would change the picture quickly

Intel has 70 people working on quantum computing. Its CEO is betting on the next frontier | CTechwww.calcalistech.com