Psiquantum Chief Insists ‘nothing Has Changed’ In Australia Plans Despite Delays

CANBERRA — PsiQuantum Chief Executive Officer Victor Peng says the company “will make up lost time” in its plan to build a first-of-its-kind quantum computer in Australia, despite delays and a move of its original site from Brisbane Airport to Moreton Bay.

The American company was backed by AU$940 million in joint funding from the federal and Queensland governments in 2024, to build the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer and establish a technology hub in Queensland.

After its original plan to build near Brisbane Airport faced complex planning and regulatory hurdles, PsiQuantum shifted to Moreton Bay, 30 kilometers away, and broke ground in June.

In his first solo interview with an Australian outlet, Peng said the project’s schedule — an operational site by the end of 2027 and the computer switched on by 2030 — remained on track.

“Nothing has changed,” he told POLITICO. “Since we've engaged with the folks in Moreton Bay, the progress has been phenomenal. We really feel it will make up some lost time.”

Placing the site in Moreton Bay, near a local TAFE site and in the middle of Queensland’s “phenomenal” research community, ensured the company’s commitment to Australia would “be a long-term commitment for everybody.” PsiQuantum operates aTest and Validation Lab at nearby Griffith University.

“This doesn’t end with when the first really useful quantum computer starts. In fact, that’s just the real beginning. It’s the end of the beginning,” he said. “People talk now about how AI is still in its early innings. So imagine quantum — we’re scratching the surface.”

Two of the company’s four co-founders, Jeremy O’Brien and Terry Rudolph, are Australian and it counts Nvidia, the world’s second most valuable company by market capitalization, among its investors.

‘It’s difficult for many members of government’

While the full scale of quantum computing’s potential remains unknown, its proponents argue it will rapidly advance medical research, make the energy system more efficient, and unlock new capabilities from financial modeling to supply chain logistics.

PsiQuantum says its Moreton Bay machine will be “fault tolerant,” meaning it can detect and correct errors that would undermine its calculations.

Peng accepted the technology, which processes information using quantum bits rather than more limited conventional binary bits, “seems very exotic” and even governments can struggle to fully comprehend it. But governments did understand its implications, he said.

“Government’s very large and I’d say that as a whole: yes, it’s difficult for many members of government to wrap their minds around that,” Peng said.

“Every time I interact with folks like [Industry] Minister [Tim] Ayres and others … they're not deep nerds, but they understand how transformative it could be, and how important it is to build for the future.”

‘Not all about weapons’

Quantum technology also poses risks, given it has the potential to render traditional encryption obsolete.

Current encryptions operate under the assumption that traditional supercomputers would take 300 trillion years to unlock them. A 2019 report by Google researchers theorized that a fault-tolerant quantum computer would eventually reduce that timeframe to just eight hours.

In 2022, a Biden administration national security memorandum warned quantum technology “could jeopardize civilian and military communications, undermine supervisory and control systems for critical infrastructure, and defeat security protocols for most Internet-based financial transactions.”

“The United States should ensure the protection of U.S. developed quantum technologies

from theft by our adversaries,” the memo said.

Last year, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission — a U.S. government body — warned Beijing was already engaged in “harvest now, encrypt later” schemes, compiling sensitive data it aims to unlock once quantum computing matures.

In June, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding all sensitive federal data be quantum protected by 2030.

Peng accepted that threat dominated debate around quantum and national security, urging democratic countries to move quickly to strengthen their systems.

But he argued quantum’s benefits would stretch well beyond cryptology into areas with both military and commercial use — like revolutionizing logistics and supply chains, and developing efficient batteries.

“It's not all about weapons and things like that, but it's still important for defense, because we all know defense has got to be revolutionized in the era we live in today,” he said.

The geopolitics of quantum are already forming on traditional lines, with Australia part of a 13-country quantum development group also including the U.S., the U.K. and Japan. China has deepened its engagement with the BRICS bloc, including Russia and Iran.

The extent of Beijing’s quantum development remains a blind-spot for western nations, though China’s quantum developers operate with heavy state involvement.

Peng insisted Australia was positioned to be a genuine world-leader on quantum, something he “didn't recognize” when he took the role.

He described the Five Eyes intelligence partnership as “critical” to maintaining that edge.

Quantum development is explicitly included in the AUKUS Pillar II, centered on technology development, and Peng said it provided a “good opportunity” to deepen the Australia-U.S. alliance.

“You’ve got to play the long game,” he said. “That's the thing here: doing it from the start, where there is good leadership, so that you can maintain that and not lose that leadership. Those are critical, and I think there is a recognition at the government's level.”

Don't confuse us with data centers

Peng was also eager to distinguish quantum technology from AI, and the large data centers needed to power it, which are facing backlash both in Australia and the U.S.

“It's incumbent on us nerds to do a better job of explaining, where we're not talking over people's heads about why [quantum] could really be helpful for their communities,” he said.

A proposed data center on the banks of Sydney’s Cooks River became the latest to be scrapped Nov. 8, following heavy community backlash. POLITICO Poll last month found half of Americans would oppose a data center within three miles of their home, up from 28% in January.

The backlash is partly driven by anxiety over energy use and its impact on the grid.

While the Moreton Bay facility’s exact energy footprint has not been established, Peng argued it would use “an order of magnitude” less energy than large AI data centers.

Standard hyperscale AI data centers can continuously draw 100 megawatts or more, with the largest planned campuses reaching gigawatt scale. A June Oak Ridge National Laboratory study modeled future fault-tolerant quantum computers as drawing “single- to double-digits” in megawatts.

Building the computer where an old paper mill used to operate also provided access to preexisting power infrastructure, Peng said.

Beyond that, Peng framed quantum as a solution to the AI energy consumption problem, stressing it could improve the data used to train AI models.

“AI models are only as good as the data they’re trained upon. If it's not trained on good data, it can get very wonky results,” he said.