Intel has 70 people working on quantum computing. Its CEO is betting on the next frontier

Intel is betting on quantum computing as one of the technologies that could shape computing a decade from now, even as the company’s CEO acknowledges that the industry has yet to determine which approach will ultimately work.

The company already has about 70 people working on quantum computing, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said on the QuantumJane podcast, and is developing its own technology based on silicon spin qubits. More importantly for a company whose historic advantage has been manufacturing, Intel is testing whether those qubits can eventually be produced using its semiconductor fabrication capabilities.

“We have like 70 people working on this and then this is spin quantum and we also have a fab,” Tan said in an interview with QuantumJane at Intel’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. “We’re also working on some of this, testing whether it works.”

Tan said quantum computing has become part of Intel’s strategic direction for the next five to 10 years, suggesting that the company views the technology not simply as a research project but as a potential extension of its manufacturing and computing businesses.

Quantum computing remains divided among several competing technologies, including superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photonics, neutral atoms and silicon spin qubits.