The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Pranav Kiran

TORONTO, May 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Honeywell's quantum computing listing will test high expectations. Quantinuum has filed to go public, and may seek a valuation of up to $20 billion, as per Bloomberg. That price tag only makes sense if a lot of factors surrounding the technology, and at the company itself, go right. A vote of confidence, as well as $100 million of capital, from the U.S. government on Thursday, as part of a $2 billion quantum computing program, may help attract more private capital.

Unlike regular computers, quantum machines use qubits, which can be zero and one simultaneously, allowing them to explore many computational possibilities at once. They show promise for tackling trial-and-error problems such as discovering new drugs or materials.

Formed through the merger of Honeywell’s quantum division and Cambridge Quantum Computing in 2021, the company remains majority owned by the industrial group. Nvidia and other backers in September invested $600 million in the company at a pre-money valuation of $10 billion.

Since 2021, five quantum computing companies — including IonQ IONQ.N, Rigetti Computing RGTI.O and D-Wave Quantum QBTS.N — have gone public, all via blank-check mergers that included PIPE financings that effectively underwrote some demand. Quantinuum would be the first to attempt a traditional listing. With giants like SpaceX and Anthropic also going public, it’s unclear whether there’s investor appetite for quantum computing on the menu.

Perhaps Quantinuum could succeed. The technology has been hobbled by low reliability, and the company’s approach to correcting errors may allow it to scale up better than rival designs.

The expectations are steep. Quantinuum is reportedly seeking a valuation of $15 billion to $20 billion. In December, Jefferies assigned IonQ, Rigetti and D‑Wave a target enterprise value multiple of roughly 60 times sales, based on median annual topline growth expectations of around 70% until 2030, and applying a discount rate. Quantinuum is worth roughly $16 billion assuming similar assumptions and growth. That's roughly how fast Nvidia’s revenue expanded between 2021 and 2025. The snag is, few companies are Nvidia NVDA.O.

Listed peers now trade at barely two-thirds those multiples. That means at the discussed valuations, investors would be betting on rapid growth and Quantinuum outperforming rivals.

Two challenges stand out. Hiring is difficult, as every peer is seeking scarce physics PhDs. Quantinuum also made nearly three-quarters of revenue in 2025 from U.S. government contracts and RIKEN, a Japanese research institute. As the share from these sources is starting to decline, investors will be keen to see whether it can grow private demand from customers like Amgen AMGN.O, BMW BMWG.DE and JPMorgan JPM.N.

For now, it’s more of a bet on promise than proof.

CONTEXT NEWS

The U.S. Department of Commerce said on May 21 that it will take $2 billion in equity stakes across nine quantum-computing companies. This includes Quantinuum, which will receive $100 million in funding for scaling its efforts to build quantum computers, according to the announcement. The private company is controlled by Honeywell, which owns a majority stake.

Quantinuum on May 8 filed for a U.S. initial public offering. The company, which plans to sell new shares in the offering, last year raised about $600 million from investors including Nvidia's venture capital arm at a $10 billion pre-money valuation.

An IPO could raise more than $1.5 billion and value the company at between $15 billion and $20 billion, Bloomberg reported in January citing people familiar with the matter.

Quantinuum reported a net loss of $192.6 million on revenue of $30.9 million in the year ended December 31, compared with a net loss of $144.1 million on revenue of $23 million a year earlier.

JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are the joint lead active book-running managers.