Several days ago, Honeywell, the majority owner of Quantinuum, said during its earnings call that it expects the new firm “to reach approximately $2 billion of sales by 2026,” a number so large and a year so close that it’s hard to believe the projection went largely uncommented on throughout the sector.
Although, the number itself was not new. Back in November 2021, when Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum Computing completed a deal in which Honeywell spun off its quantum solutions group and merged it with Cambridge, Honeywell told investors it foresaw $2 billion in sales–but by 2027. It has accelerated its outlook by year.
Why? It may have something to do with Honeywell liking what it has seen so far from the market response to the combined company’s first solution, Quantum Origin, an encryption key generation offering. Honeywell Chairman and CEO Darius Adamcyzk on the industrial giant’s fourth quarter 2021 earnings call earlier this month that Quantum Origin is “already serving Fortune 500 customers today.”
While that’s one positive sign for Quantinuum’s future, it’s more likely that the big sales expectations are based on many more offerings to come, as well as Quantinuum’s ambitions for achieving quantum advantage within the next few years.
$2 billion by 2026 is a much higher figure than other companies in the sector are expecting for the same year. For example, Rigetti Computing, which is in the process of merging with special purpose acquisition company Supernova Partners II in order to go public, said at an investor conference last month that it is projecting to achieve about $600 million in revenue by 2026. Another publicly-traded quantum firm, IonQ, said late last year that it expects more than $500 million in revenue by 2026. Notably, IBM, perceived as a sector leader, has not recently discussed specific revenue projections for its own quantum efforts.
The year 2026 is significant not only as a five-year projection target, but also because many quantum companies expect that they will be able to demonstrate quantum advantage sometime between 2023 and 2025. Quantinuum may be trending toward the early part of that time frame.
Honeywell also said during its recent earnings call that it is expecting Quantinuum to reach about $20 million in revenue for 2022, so it has a lot of work ahead of it. Honeywell already has invested $270 million in Quantinuum, and this year is planning a “$150 million of net P&L investment” that is not part of the original $270 million investment, a Honeywell spokesperson confirmed.