France’s quantum computer maker Pasqal surges in Nasdaq debut 28-Aug 22:24

Shares of French quantum-computing company Pasqal surged around 60% in their ​Nasdaq debut on Friday, signalling strong ‌investor appetite for one of the sector’s newest public companies.

Pasqal began trading after merging ​with blank-cheque company Bleichroeder Acquisition ​Corp II in a transaction that valued ⁠it at about $2 billion before ​new funding. The deal left the loss-making ​company with approximately $360 million in cash to expand production, deploy more processors and pursue fault-tolerant ​quantum computing.

Its listing comes after President ​Donald Trump ordered agencies to accelerate quantum technology development. ‌The ⁠Commerce Department signed preliminary agreements for about $2 billion in incentives to nine quantum companies. Pasqal is not among them.

France ​is backing ​Pasqal ⁠through state bank Bpifrance, which participated in financing linked to ​the merger.

Quantum processors are being ​developed ⁠to tackle specialised problems in fields such as drug discovery, materials science and ⁠financial ​modelling, but persistent errors ​still limit their reliability at scale.