Quantum-Focused AI Firm SandboxAQ Surpasses $5 Billion Valuation Goal

SandboxAQ raised more than $300 million to apply quantum technology to artificial intelligence.

The funding round puts the company’s valuation at over $5.6 billion, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Dec. 18).

Tech-focused venture capital companies have made AI a priority, and SandboxAQ tries to stand out by adopting methods that differ from the approaches used by companies such as OpenAI, according to the report.

The company runs quantum physics algorithms on graphics processing units (GPUs), with the goal of moving to more advanced machines, the report said.

“Our software today can run on GPUs, and in the future, we can also start to incorporate quantum processing units, QPUs,” CEO Jack Hidary said in an interview, per Bloomberg. “At SandboxAQ, the AQ stands for AI and quantum.”

The company, an offshoot of Google, is chaired by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the report said. The company has collaborated with firms like Accenture and Deloitte and is pursuing corporate customers.

SandboxAQ’s new $5.6 billion valuation is above the $5 billion target the company set for itself in October.

PYMNTS explored SandboxAQ’s efforts earlier this year in a conversation with Chris Hume, the company’s senior director of business operations.

“The physical world is defined by quantum mechanics,” he said. “The more effectively we can understand those interactions and then model those interactions, the more efficiently and effectively you can build predictive models. With the algorithms that we’re developing combined with the classical computer hardware that’s available today, you can build better predictive models, and that’s the exciting part. And that’s the opportunity at hand.”

In other AI news, PYMNTS examined Wednesday the breakthroughs and barriers surrounding AI, as new models deliver mixed signals about the pace of this technology’s progress.

“AI isn’t hitting the brakes; it’s just outgrowing the public data pool,” Eugina Jordan, chief marketing officer of the TIP Telecom Infra Project, told PYMNTS. “While we’ve pretty much wrung every drop of insight from external data (and sometimes maybe without data owners knowing), the real magic is sitting inside private organizational data. Businesses can fine-tune AI models with their own treasure troves, making tools smarter and hyper-relevant.”

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