When Breakthrough Energy Ventures announced a new investment in quantum computing last month, it raised some eyebrows. Did the addition really fit into the firm’s focus on clean energy and climate tech, certain observers wonder, or might it be stretching the definition a bit?
Breakthrough led the $105 million Series A funding round of Sygaldry Technologies, a startup building quantum computers with the goal of making artificial intelligence models faster and more efficient. Other investors included Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Rock Yard Ventures, and Earth Venture Capital; the last is the only other one with a decarbonization mandate driving its investments.
Sygaldry isn’t the first time Breakthrough Energy invests in quantum computing. In 2021, the firm participated in the $350 million private investment in public equity (or PIPE) funding round for IonQ, a hardware and software quantum computing developer.
But this latest commitment, coming at a time when rapidly increasing load growth from data centers and AI is threatening the reliability of energy systems across the world, is putting a spotlight on quantum computing’s energy-saving potential.
In an emailed statement to Latitude Media, Carmichael Roberts, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy, said that part of the rationale behind the investment comes from the fact that large language models’ energy intensity is becoming unsustainable. “We believe new computing platforms such as quantum computing have the potential to break this paradigm,” he wrote.
