France’s quantum computer maker Pasqal surges in Nasdaq debut

Shares of French quantum-computing company Pasqal surged around 60% in their Nasdaq debut on Friday, signalling strong investor appetite for one of the sector’s newest public companies.

Pasqal began trading after merging with blank-cheque company Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp II in a transaction that valued it at about $2 billion before new funding. The deal left the loss-making company with approximately $360 million in cash to expand production, deploy more processors and pursue fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Its listing comes after President Donald Trump ordered agencies to accelerate quantum technology development. The Commerce Department signed preliminary agreements for about $2 billion in incentives to nine quantum companies. Pasqal is not among them.

France is backing Pasqal through state bank Bpifrance, which participated in financing linked to the merger.

Quantum processors are being developed to tackle specialised problems in fields such as drug discovery, materials science and financial modelling, but persistent errors still limit their reliability at scale.