Milestone moment for "quantum computing" investment theme! Norwegian sovereign fund invests in the "quantum three musketeers" as institutional funds gather momentum.

Senior analyst Antoine Legault from the well-known investment firm Wedbush Securities on Wall Street stated that the latest massive investment by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund in the global quantum computing leader IonQ (IONQ.US) could mark the beginning of a significant investment wave in the quantum computing field by some of the world's largest active asset management institutions. The Norwegian central bank's investment management institution (NBIM) responsible for managing the fund disclosed a long position operation in multiple quantum computing companies' stocks in the fourth quarter of 2025, involving IonQ, Rigetti (RGTI.US), and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS.US), three leading US quantum concept stocks, with the widest risk exposure being towards IonQ. In a recent research report to clients, Wedbush Securities senior analyst Legault wrote, "In addition to significantly increasing their initial position in IONQ, we also noticed that the Norwegian central bank also increased its investment in Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum in the fourth calendar quarter, indicating that this sovereign wealth fund believes that the quantum field will thrive in the future, similar to the current artificial intelligence trend, where there will be more than one super winner; Furthermore, in the long term, more than one successful quantum technology pathway (modality) is likely to emerge a view that we also agree with." According to a recent holding list released by the Norwegian government, the size of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has reached $2.2 trillion, still ranking as the world's largest sovereign wealth fund managed by the Norwegian central bank. Based on their recent 13-F US stock holding filing, as of the fourth quarter, the Norwegian central bank, managing the sovereign fund, held approximately $200 million worth of IonQ shares, about $39 million worth of Rigetti shares, and around $4 million worth of D-Wave Quantum shares. Legault stated that while these holdings are relatively small compared to the respective total market values of the relevant quantum computing companies and the total managed assets of the Norwegian central bank, he sees them as a "significant" mega-scale asset management institution betting on the long-term growth potential of this cutting-edge technology. Legault emphasized the milestone significance of the Norwegian central bank's latest investments in the leading US quantum computing concepts, indicating that it could serve as a "milestone investment starting point" for other large active asset management institutions and Wall Street financial giants entering this field; so far, data compiled by institutions indicate that this technology field is mainly dominated by retail investors and some passive ETF funds. Legault added, "Overall, despite recent volatile fluctuations in quantum computing stocks, we maintain a constructive growth view on this technology and its long-term prospects in the addressable market, reiterating our 'Outperform' stock ratings for IONQ, RGTI, and QBTS, these three leading US quantum concept stocks." "The Era of Quantum Supremacy" is approaching With IonQ's announcement of achieving a 99.99% fidelity in double-qubit gates, and IBM deploying quantum error correction decoders on commercial AMD FPGAs for real-time responses in nanoseconds, it is widely predicted in the industry that the industrial quantum advantage and key quantum milestones like "quantum supremacy" may be achieved in three to five years. The approaching technological threshold is transforming quantum computing from an academic topic to a pressing national security concern, especially as "practical quantum advantage" is more likely to appear within the next 2-5 years in the form of 'narrow scenarios + hybrid computing + verifiable benefits'. The CEO of IonQ, a global quantum computing leader, Nickol De Masi recently stated that significant breakthroughs and transformations in the quantum computing field are rapidly approaching, with the so-called "era of quantum supremacy" on the horizon. With the continuous improvement in the number of quantum hardware bits and gate fidelity, the concept of "quantum supremacy" used to mark an important milestone, where quantum processors can complete computations in a defined task at a speed unreachable by classical supercomputers in a reasonable time. Quantum computing systems utilize the properties of quantum mechanics, such as quantum superposition and entanglement, to provide a new computing paradigm that theoretically can significantly surpass the computing capabilities of traditional binary computers in specific fields. According to a statement by Alphabet Inc. Class C on December 9th last year, the Willow quantum chip demonstrated remarkable performance in benchmark tests, able to complete a "standard benchmark calculation" in less than 5 minutes, a task that traditional supercomputers would take 10-25 years to achieve. Although quantum computing technology is still in its nascent stage, it is rapidly advancing, and the Norwegian central bank recognizes the significant investment opportunity in the quantum field. Looking at the evolution of quantum computing technology, it is currently in the transition phase of "high noise early error correction verification": hardware scale and availability are increasing, but the main battle has shifted from "competing in physical bit numbers" to "pushing errors below the correctable threshold, and weaving physical bits into long-term stable logical bits." The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's "ASC Quantum Report 2026" explicitly mentions that the mainstream route is widely turning towards fault-tolerant architecture, with all mainstream bit technologies demonstrating quantum error correction elements; even the most aggressive public roadmap sets the goal of providing hundreds of logical bits by the end of the 2020s, but also emphasizes the high progress risks. The key to achieving "large-scale commercial application" is not in having a large number of quantum computing chips, but in being able to run deep circuits with error-corrected logical bits and maintain a predictable success rate. This typically means stable quantities of logical bits, extremely low logical error rates, scalable error correction measurement/control chains, and sustainable delivery of engineered systems. Taking IBM as an example, its publicly outlined path sets the system goal for 2029 as about 200 logical bits, running approximately 100 million quantum gates on a fault-tolerant machine (Starling). Such levels of "logical bits + deep circuits" are closer to creating reproducible commercial value across a wider range of problems. IonQ's business is closely related to "controlled entanglement," and the critical path for achieving large-scale commercialization of quantum computing applications requires not just the ability to entangle, but high-fidelity, parallelizable, calibratable, and long-term stable entanglement gates that can be integrated into a real-time quantum error correction cycle (measure to classic decoding and feedback correction). Entanglement is the "fuel," while error correction and control systems are the "engine and gearbox." IonQ's approach is based on trapped ions, where their native two-qubit gate (Mlmer-Srensen, MS) essentially generates entanglement by coupling the internal states of ions with the collective motion of the chain through pulses; IonQ's official documentation also directly describes the MS gate as a universal gate set core for "creating entanglement". Furthermore, IonQ has conducted systematic benchmark tests on its Forte system, with operations on a single chain of 30 bits, and full connectivity (all-to-all), providing benchmarks for applications (including "algorithmic qubits/AQ" benchmarks). This combination of "connectivity + gate quality + application benchmarks" reflects their path of engineering entanglement operations and advancing towards higher levels of usability. In a broader sense, the past 12-18 months have seen the most "hardcore" quantum physics advancements shift from "producing more physical bits" to "making error correction truly effective." Alphabet Inc. Class C's results published in "Nature" are widely seen as a key milestone: entering the "below-threshold" region under the surface code framework increasing the encoding scale allows the logical error rate to continue to decrease, indicating that the route to fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) has been proven viable in physics, rather than just a theoretical promise. In the financial market, the risk exposure of the Norwegian central bank to the three leading quantum concept sectors in the US stock market is a milestone. Although quantum computing technology is still in its early stages but rapidly developing, the Norwegian central bank has undoubtedly recognized the significant investment opportunities in quantum, especially with its latest additional holdings in IonQ, which could be seen as a "future technology option that large investment institutions are increasing their exposure to in their risk budgets".