Quantum Australia delivers $56 million, a 4.5x return on public investment, and 78 industry research partnerships

Quantum Australia, the national centre for quantum growth, has delivered a 4.5x return on public investment in just 18 months, catalysing just over $12 million in public funding into over $56 million in industry-linked research.

Established in July 2024 and backed by the Australian Government, states and university partners, Quantum Australia has also catalysed 78 industry-research partnerships working on real-world use-cases across priority sectors.

It has also helped create six new quantum startups, with many more in the pipeline, spanning the quantum technology stack from software to hardware and devices.

Applications by these startups range from drug discovery and cancer diagnostics to commercially-relevant optimisation problems such as electricity-grid balancing, freight scheduling, solar-cell restoration, and more.

This is critical given independent modelling shows quantum-enabled adoption could add trillions of dollars to the global economy and around $6.1 billion to Australia’s GDP by 2045 when applied across critical industries like these and energy and resources, health and biotech, finance, and freight and supply chains.

As a nation, Australia enters this high-potential next phase with strong global credentials, supported by a national ecosystem spanning 26 research organisations, more than 44 quantum startups, and a top-five global quantum workforce.

It led the developed world in government quantum investment from 2020 to 2024, and has invested around $2.4 billion in quantum research over the past two decades across government and Centres of Excellence.

The National Quantum Strategy was launched in 2023 with the goal of becoming a global quantum industry leader by 2030, while the National Reconstruction Fund recently invested $20 million in Diraq to further develop silicon-based quantum processors.

Global financial institutions like HSBC have also already begun applying quantum computing in real business environments, illustrating how quantum methods can deliver competitive advantage in financial services.

For instance, a 2025 HSBC–IBM trial of quantum-enhanced algorithmic bond trading produced up to a 34 percent improvement in predicting trade outcomes compared with traditional methods.

Group Head of Quantum Technologies at HSBC Philip Intallura will travel from the UK to share his insights on the Australian and global financial services ecosystem at the Quantum Australia Conference 2026 occurring on 28 to 29 April in Adelaide.

By bringing together these credentials, investments, and skills through its national community of practice, Quantum Australia is translating Australia’s quantum strength into practical economic opportunity, said Quantum Australia CEO Petra Andren.

Petra Andrén (pictured), CEO of Quantum Australia, said, “The role of Quantum Australia is to ensure our nation’s investment in quantum translates into real economic outcomes, not just scientific excellence, and our community of practice is the mechanism that enables this translation.

“This community is composed of an active network of over 4,000 people across industry, research, government, and investment who are working on real problems together. This collaborative approach creates shared learning between those building quantum technologies, and those who will ultimately use them. This is critical because, without national coordination like this, the return on the billions already invested in quantum is at risk of remaining fragmented or unrealised.

“Because the value of quantum will not be captured by technology developers alone, but by end-users across the wider economy who apply it to productivity-critical challenges. Companies across financial services, resources and energy, health, and supply chains are already investing early and running targeted pilots, because this is where durable competitive advantage will be created – HSBC is a great example of this. Defence, as an early adopter, is now scaling trials and capability pathways alongside broader critical-infrastructure operators focused on resilience and security.

“So our focus is therefore on building the interface between deep research capability and industry demand so those opportunities can be realised at scale.”

The six startups have largely originated from NewQ, Quantum Australia’s pre-accelerator program designed to nurture emerging quantum ventures by providing support in business model validation, industry engagement and commercial readiness.

Through structured mentorship, connection to industry partners and tailored capability building, NewQ (and follow-on program NextQ) helps aspiring founders and early-stage teams move from lab-based research toward commercially viable quantum solutions.