Quantum news — July 12, 2026

Two Israeli quantum startups, Quantum Art and Classiq, are in advanced talks for Wall Street listings via SPAC deals that could value each company at up to $5 billion, making them among the largest quantum-sector public-market transactions attempted to date [1]. The news adds a significant capital-markets dimension to the sector on July 12, distinct from the hardware and software milestones dominating recent days. On the research and applications front, scientists are combining AI and quantum computing to generate novel peptides, with Wired reporting that researchers are using hybrid quantum-classical methods as a kind of productive side project that is already yielding candidate molecules [2]. Separately, a report highlights how the same quantum-AI convergence is being applied to rare disease drug discovery, with quantum algorithms helping to navigate the vast chemical search spaces that make orphan-drug development especially challenging [3]. A notable hardware result published July 12 comes from the National University of Singapore and collaborators, who demonstrated a room-temperature, CMOS-compatible photonic quantum processor, a combination that sidesteps the cryogenic cooling requirements of most competing approaches and opens a potential path toward photonic quantum chips built on standard semiconductor fabrication lines [4]. The University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing announced a new tranche of federal funding to support both theoretical and applied quantum research at the institution, reinforcing Canada's continued public investment in its domestic quantum science base [5]. On the infrastructure side, a market forecast projects strong growth in the cryo cables market through 2035, driven by rising demand from quantum computing hardware and fusion energy installations, pointing to the supply-chain build-out now underway beneath the headline processor announcements [6]. Interesting Engineering published an explainer on why quantum-resistant encryption is rapidly becoming a chipmaking problem, detailing how the shift to post-quantum cryptographic standards is forcing semiconductor designers to embed new algorithm accelerators directly into silicon rather than treating cryptographic upgrades as purely a software concern [7]. The Financial Times offered a note of investor caution, warning readers to watch for a "Schrödinger's cat bounce" in quantum computing stocks, arguing that market enthusiasm is running ahead of demonstrated commercial returns [8].