Quantum Elements and Qarakal Quantum Receive BIRD Foundation Grant for Quantum Computing Innovation with a $2.4M Budget

Joint project will combine superconducting quantum hardware and AI-native digital twins to accelerate catalyst discovery

— Izhar Medalsy, Co-Founder and CEO of Quantum Elements

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, October 28, 2026 /

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today announced they have been selected by the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation to jointly develop a quantum simulation platform for understanding and designing the chemical reactions that occur on material surfaces.

The project, one of seven approved by the BIRD Foundation, has a budget of $2.4 million.

The project will combine Qarakal Quantum’s modular superconducting quantum hardware and hardware-software co-design approach with Quantum Elements’ software for advancing fault-tolerant quantum computing, using AI-driven co-design, error suppression, error correction and decoders.

Together, the companies will work toward a validated prototype capable of taking industrially relevant catalyst problems and turning them into quantum-ready computational workflows. Heterogeneous catalysis is essential to industries ranging from energy and chemicals to advanced materials, with catalytic processes involved in the manufacture of an estimated 80–90% of chemical products. The scale of these industries is significant -- according to a MarketLine study, the global chemical processing industry generates between $5 and $6 trillion annually. Reactions occurring on the surface of catalysts play a central role in processes such as clean hydrogen production, CO₂ conversion, nitrogen-fixation chemistry, hydrocarbon processing, and the performance and degradation of advanced coatings.