Insider Brief Diffraqtion, an MIT and University of Maryland spinout, raised $4.2 million in pre-seed funding to commercialize a quantum camera enabling lower-cost satellite constellations for space domain awareness and Earth observation. The company’s quantum imaging system, developed from NASA and DARPA-backed research, claims up to 20× higher resolution and Read more
Insider Brief Haiqu raised an $11 million seed round to accelerate development and launch of a hardware-aware quantum operating system designed to run near-term quantum applications at significantly lower computational cost. The funding will support continued development of Haiqu’s quantum middleware, which focuses on circuit optimization, error shielding, and software Read more
Insider Brief A Defense Department Inspector General review finds that the Pentagon has not consistently updated its assessment of which military problems could be addressed by near-term quantum computing, weakening alignment between technology development and operational needs. The lack of regular reassessment and coordination across the Army, Navy and Air Read more
Insider Brief The Year of Quantum Security 2026 formally launched in Washington with U.S. officials, industry leaders, legal experts, and international diplomats aligning on the view that quantum security is now an active infrastructure and governance challenge rather than a distant technical risk. Discussions focused on the long timelines required Read more
Insider Brief An IEEE study finds that today’s cloud-based quantum computers could face significant security risks, including manipulation, intellectual property theft and silent degradation of results, well before fault-tolerant machines arrive. The researchers show that quantum circuits, compilers, calibration processes and shared hardware can leak sensitive problem information or be Read more
Insider Brief IBM has released early cloud access to its 120-qubit Nighthawk quantum processor alongside an upgraded Heron system, aiming to support more complex quantum workloads while maintaining low error rates. The Nighthawk processor increases qubit connectivity by more than 20 percent over previous IBM systems, enabling circuits with up Read more
Insider Brief Argonne National Laboratory and Intel have deployed a 12-qubit quantum dot device in a collaboration led by the DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center, Q-NEXT. Quantum dots confine electrons to discrete energy levels, enabling their use as qubits, and Argonne is testing the behavior of the 12-dot Read more
Forward Edge-AI has expanded its global channel partner ecosystem with over two dozen new partners to deliver post-quantum cryptography and cybersecurity solutions at scale. The company’s Isidore Quantum platform provides hardware-based, plug-and-play post-quantum encryption that is NSA CNSA 2.0 compliant, protocol-agnostic, and compatible with legacy and modern networks. The channel Read more
Insider Brief NordVPN experts warn that cybersecurity risks in 2026 will intensify due to internet monoculture, AI-driven attacks, misinformation, erosion of digital trust, and emerging quantum threats. Cybercrime is becoming more scalable and automated, with AI enabling faster attacks, synthetic identities, deepfakes, and “harvest now, decrypt later” strategies. The report Read more
Insider Brief: Anders Indset and Andrew Cheung make the case that quantum risk is already present, as data encrypted today can be harvested now and decrypted later once sufficiently powerful quantum systems emerge. Cheung emphasizes that the main challenge in post-quantum security is execution, noting that migration requires system-wide change Read more