Oxford Quantum Circuits marks £260m raise as London quantum-AI platform moves ahead

The Series C includes £100 million from the British Business Bank and follows a research collaboration with JPMorganChase and AMD

Oxford Quantum Circuits marked its £260 million Series C funding round at the London Stock Exchange. Photo credit: London Stock Exchange

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) has marked its £260 million Series C funding round at the London Stock Exchange as the UK quantum computing company prepares to expand its international infrastructure and build a dedicated quantum-AI research platform in London.

OQC announced the oversubscribed funding round on June 3 and describes it as Europe’s largest private investment round for a quantum computing company. The London Stock Exchange said in a LinkedIn post that £100 million of the total came from the British Business Bank.

Bullhound Capital led the Series C, with other investors including Fynveur, COFIDES, RCM Private Markets Fund, Alpha Edison, Fulcrum Asset Management, Pentland Ventures, Magdalen College Oxford, Oxford Capital, and Oxford Science Enterprises.

OQC plans to use the funding to expand systems across priority international markets and continue work toward commercially useful, fault-tolerant quantum computing. Its quantum systems are already deployed in the UK, United States, Japan, and Spain.

The funding follows OQC’s separate June 3 announcement of a research collaboration with JPMorganChase and AMD. OQC is building a dedicated Quantum-AI Data Centre in London, with JPMorganChase due to become its first dedicated user and the platform expected to be fully operational within 12 months.

Series C backs international expansion

OQC develops superconducting quantum computers designed to operate within commercial data center environments for enterprise and government customers.

The funding will support an expansion of OQC’s operational presence and deployed systems, alongside further work on system performance, reliability, and fault tolerance.

OQC Chief Executive Officer Gerald Mullally says: "This is a coming-of-age moment for British quantum computing. It shows that British companies can play a leading role in a technology that will shape all our futures. Globally, it represents a clear shift in the market – from long-term promise to near-term delivery in quantum computing.

“For OQC, this gives us the capital to scale internationally, advance our technology roadmap, and meet increasing demand from customers seeking secure, scalable access to quantum computing infrastructure."

OQC has not disclosed its valuation following the round, the proportion of equity sold, or the individual investment amounts beyond the £100 million attributed to the British Business Bank.

The investor group includes existing backers Oxford Science Enterprises, SBI, Chevron Technology Ventures, the University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, and OTIF Ventures. J.P. Morgan acted as the exclusive placement agent.

OQC Founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Peter Leek says: "OQC was founded to use innovative quantum circuit designs to build engineered systems that scale as simply as possible. I’m proud to be part of the incredible team we have today doing exactly that, to pioneer the future of quantum computing.

“This investment supports the next stage of our work: advancing system performance and reliability while continuing to integrate quantum computers into the trusted infrastructure customers depend on."

The British Business Bank investment forms part of wider UK government support for quantum technology. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves says the government has committed up to £2 billion to help UK quantum businesses reach commercial scale.

British Business Bank Senior Investment Director George Mills says: "Quantum Computing has the potential to solve some of the hardest computing challenges which remain unsolved by AI, but is held back by its ability to scale up.

“OQC’s systems fill that gap with their world leading speed and scalability. We are delighted to be backing the team at OQC again as they scale up their commercial offering with the development of OQC TITAN."

JPMorganChase becomes first dedicated platform user

OQC’s London Quantum-AI Data Centre will physically combine the OQC GENESIS quantum system with AI and high-performance classical computing infrastructure supported by AMD.

JPMorganChase researchers will use the secure environment to test near-term quantum and hybrid quantum-classical applications for financial services.

The proposed research areas include portfolio optimization, quantum machine learning, specialized AI models designed to improve quantum circuit performance, and the development of algorithms for financial use cases.

The partners also plan to examine the role of classical computing in supporting scalable, fault-tolerant quantum algorithms.

Mullally says: "Quantum computing has to move from isolated experiments into the secure compute environments where enterprises actually work."

He adds: "That is what we are building with JPMorganChase’s quantum research expertise: a dedicated Quantum-AI platform for financial services that combines quantum hardware, AI and high-performance computing to support serious technical research and move the industry closer to practical quantum applications."

The platform will provide simulation, optimization, AI model development, benchmarking, and application-level tools. AMD will supply computing technologies for the AI and classical infrastructure layer.

JPMorganChase Global Chief Information Officer Lori Beer says: "The financial services industry depends on understanding complexity, managing risk and making decisions with speed, security and confidence."

She adds: "Through this partnership, our teams will have a dedicated environment to research the near-term utility of hybrid quantum-classical computing in finance and assess how quantum, AI and high-performance computing can work together to address real world challenges."

The partners intend to compare hybrid workflows against enterprise requirements for performance, reproducibility, security, and scalability. The research announcement does not include named products, commercial deployment dates, or evidence that the platform has produced a financial computing advantage.

London Stock Exchange event marks next phase

OQC later held an event at the London Stock Exchange to mark the Series C, with screens at the exchange displaying the company’s funding milestone.

OQC said in a LinkedIn post that the event recognized work across its technology, customer delivery, operations, partnerships, and international expansion.

The company presents its systems as application-optimized quantum infrastructure available through cloud access, enterprise and sovereign data centers, and application programming interfaces.

OQC also claims a two-qubit gate speed of 25 nanoseconds and a one-to-one physical-to-logical qubit ratio. These technical claims were provided by OQC and were not accompanied in the supplied material by independent benchmarking details.

The London research platform with JPMorganChase and AMD is expected to become fully operational within 12 months. OQC will use the Series C funding alongside that project to expand deployed systems in international markets and continue its fault-tolerant quantum computing roadmap.