A public research surface · updated continuously
The quantum race will be won by whoever owns the chokepoints.
Dilution refrigerators, helium-3, silicon-28, control electronics, lasers, ultra-high vacuum. Quantum Bottlenecks maps the physical supply chain behind every qubit — and the listed companies that own each choke. Own the strait, not the tanker.
51 names tracked · 10 chokepoints · free, no login
The chokepoints
I
Cryogenics & dilution refrigerators
Superconducting qubits live below 20 millikelvin — and almost every fridge that gets there comes from two companies.
BLUEFORS · QDI · FORM · SOHVY · AIQUY · MAYBELL
II
Helium-3 & cryogen supply
He-3 comes almost entirely from tritium decay in weapons programs; without it dilution refrigeration does not exist.
ASPI · LIN · APD · AIQUY · FORM · BLUEFORS · INTERLUNE
III
Isotopes & quantum materials
Isotopically pure silicon-28, high-purity niobium, and superconducting wire are single-digit-supplier markets.
ASPI · SILXY · BRKR · ATI · AMSC · CBMM
IV
Control electronics & cryo-CMOS
Every qubit needs room-temperature control channels that cost more than the qubit; scaling dies here first.
KEYS · FORM · INTC · NVDA · QMACHINES · QBLOX · ZHINST
V
Lasers & precision photonics
Trapped-ion and neutral-atom machines are built out of narrow-linewidth lasers, AOMs and optics from a handful of suppliers.
GCHHF · TOPTICA · COHR · IPGP · MKSI · HPHTY · MSQUARED
VI
Ultra-high vacuum systems
Ion traps and atom arrays need 10^-11 torr; the pump and chamber supply chain is an oligopoly nobody prices.
ATLKY · A · MKSI · VACNY · PFFVF · INFQ · KJLC
VII
Qubit fabrication & foundry
Superconducting and photonic qubits pass through a tiny set of trusted foundries with quantum process lines.
GFS · SKYT · PSIQUANTUM · IONQ · AMAT · RGTI · QUBT
VIII
Classical co-processing & error correction
Real-time quantum error correction needs classical compute physically beside the QPU; decoding is a silicon problem.
NVDA · AMD · IBM · KEYS · RIVERLANE · QMACHINES
IX
Platform pure-plays
The visible layer: listed quantum computer makers racing fault tolerance, burning cash, and repricing on every milestone.
IONQ · QNT · RGTI · QBTS · QUBT · ARQQ · PSIQUANTUM
X
Private giants & exposure vehicles
Quantinuum, PsiQuantum, QuEra, SandboxAQ — the heavyweight cap tables without tickers, and the listed paths into them.
QNT · HON · NVDA · GOOGL · PSIQUANTUM · SANDBOXAQ · QUERA
Latest brief · 2026-09-11
Climbing rate-hike odds pulled the quantum-hardware and enabling-materials complex lower, with Alphabet the tape's lone green.
It was a down session for the quantum basket, and the only notable green was the deepest-pocketed name on it: Alphabet (GOOGL) rose 0.6% to $332.60, its Google Quantum AI effort insulated by a balance sheet that does not care about the cost of capital. Everything more speculative fell. The macro did the work — a fourth straight down day for the major indices, WTI above $100, and Fed funds futures pricing roughly a 73% chance of a quarter-point hike at next week's meeting. Quantum is the longest-duration bet in hard tech, and rising rate-hike odds discount its distant payoffs hardest.
The laggard was ASP Isotopes (ASPI), down 6.0% to $3.59. ASPI sits on the enabling-materials chokepoint — enriched isotopes, including the silicon-28 substrates that spin-qubit and some superconducting roadmaps require — and it fell furthest even though its own catalyst is near: the company has guided first commercial silicon-28 shipments for Q3 2026. The drop is a rate-driven derating of a pre-revenue materials supplier, not a change in the enrichment thesis. The pure-play processors moved with it: IonQ (IONQ) fell 3.4% to $36.84, D-Wave (QBTS) and Quantum Computing (QUBT) each fell 2.7%, and Arqit (ARQQ) dropped 4.9%; Rigetti (RGTI) was more resilient, off 0.5% to $15.16.
The silicon layer took a name-specific hit that tied into the same tape. Intel (INTC) fell 5.6% to $100.32 after Piper Sandler initiated coverage at Neutral with a $110 target — a fade of an earlier-week run that had been fueled by an unconfirmed report of a PC-processor price increase. AMD (AMD) fell 3.4% in sympathy across the compute-adjacent silicon that the quantum control stack leans on. The session's read is consistent: on the enabling layers — control electronics, cryogenics, isotopes — the market cut duration risk indiscriminately.
The calendar turns busy immediately. IEEE Quantum Week (QCE26) runs in Toronto Sept 13–18, the field's largest technical gathering and a live catalyst for the hardware names. On policy, the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act faces House floor action targeted for late September, and ASPI's own silicon-28 shipment window closes Q3. Further out, the DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative's Stage C down-select decisions land in December — the government scorecard that will separate the funded roadmaps from the rest, and the one signal that would re-rate this basket on fundamentals rather than rates.