OptQC raises $47M as NTT backs its room-temperature quantum computer bet

Why it matters

OptQC has moved its Furusawa Lab technology into an operating demonstration machine and raised $47 million to target a 10,000-qubit successor. Workload results, user access, customers and pricing remain undisclosed, so the round finances the engineering test rather than validating commercial demand.

Kan Takase, the former University of Tokyo assistant professor who co-founded OptQC in 2024, has closed a 7.0 billion yen ($47 million) Series A2 led by NTT to build the next generation of OptQC's room-temperature optical quantum computers.

Takase spent eight years researching optical quantum computing in the University of Tokyo's Furusawa Laboratory before leaving academia in September 2024. He formed OptQC with fellow researcher Warit Asavanant and laboratory head Akira Furusawa, turning more than two decades of academic work into a commercial hardware program. OptQC was incorporated on September 2, 2024, and is based in Toshima-ku, Tokyo.

The financing comes about a month after OptQC and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, or AIST, started operating MoQuren, OptQC's first commercial demonstration system, at AIST's G-QuAT research center. OptQC plans to use the new capital for a successor processor targeting approximately 10,000 qubits and 100 times MoQuren's computational performance, as well as hiring across quantum optics, circuit design, mechanical engineering, control systems, software and business development.

OptQC has now raised 9.15 billion yen, or about $61 million, in equity across three rounds: a 650 million yen seed in January 2025, a 1.5 billion yen Series A1 in October 2025 and the Series A2 announced on August 25. OptQC's larger $133 million cumulative figure includes public research grants and should not be read as equity funding. OptQC has not disclosed its valuation, ownership breakdown, headcount or individual investor check sizes.

From the Furusawa Lab to a running machine

Takase's route into OptQC began with the physical control of quantum light. He earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from the Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, at the University of Tokyo, devised methods for generating qubits at higher rates and worked on controlling quantum-light pulses before becoming an assistant professor.

Asavanant, OptQC's co-founder and CTO, came to Japan from Thailand in 2011 and studied under Furusawa from his undergraduate years through his doctorate. In 2019, he demonstrated a two-dimensional optical cluster state, a form of large-scale entanglement used in OptQC's measurement-based approach to quantum computing. Furusawa's work reaches further back: he demonstrated deterministic quantum teleportation at Caltech in 1998 and later developed a method for building optical quantum computers around teleportation, according to OptQC's company profile.

That research lineage is OptQC's central asset. OptQC's architecture generates optical pulses sequentially, sends them into the processor at different times and measures them in sequence. It uses quantum teleportation and time-domain multiplexing to perform operations with fewer optical components.

OptQC's photonic architecture is designed to operate at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, avoiding the dilution refrigerators required by some competing quantum-computing platforms. OptQC argues that this design can reduce energy consumption and control-system complexity while making its machines easier to integrate with conventional data centers and optical networks.

MoQuren is the first test of whether the laboratory architecture can become maintainable computing infrastructure. OptQC's published roadmap describes it as a 100-input quantum-analog demonstration machine operating at 100 MHz. AIST says MoQuren is a component of its System O project and that OptQC's optical technology is being integrated into the ABCI-Q hybrid quantum-classical infrastructure. OptQC is also developing an SDK and simulator for researchers and prospective users.

MoQuren remains a demonstration system rather than a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer. The first work is operational: keeping the hardware stable, integrating it with classical systems and giving developers a usable environment. OptQC has not disclosed what workloads MoQuren has completed, who can currently access it, how many users it has or whether access is priced. Revenue, paying customers and commercial contract values are also undisclosed, leaving commercial traction unproven.

NTT brings more than a check

NTT's lead investment follows an August 3 capital and business alliance that expanded a research collaboration established in November 2025. The two groups have stated a goal of building a fault-tolerant, million-qubit-class optical quantum computer by fiscal 2030.

Their first-phase joint research agreement runs through fiscal 2027 and covers wavelength-division multiplexing, fault-tolerant optical quantum-computer design and system architecture for a million-qubit-class machine. The release also places the project alongside NTT's optical communications, network, data-center and IOWN-related technologies.

That combination explains why NTT matters beyond its check. Scaling quantum hardware requires specialized manufacturing, data-center integration and prospective users willing to test early systems. The alliance calls for technical development and commercialization work that includes building a supply chain and exploring use cases with prospective users and industry partners.

Takase said in the financing announcement that having NTT as lead investor gives OptQC "significant momentum." The fiscal 2030 goal still carries a substantial proof burden: neither company has demonstrated the fault-tolerant architecture or million-qubit system described in the agreement.

Twenty-one investors, and twenty-one possible routes into industry

NTT was joined by ANA Holdings, Canon Marketing Japan, KDDI, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Estate's BRICKS FUND TOKYO, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Capital, NGK, Nissay Capital, SBI Holdings, Shimadzu, SMBC Venture Capital and Sumisho Venture Partners.

The independent venture investors were Delight Ventures, Global Brain, Mirai Creation Fund III, Mobile Internet Capital and SBI Investment. The Japan Science and Technology Agency, which runs a Moonshot research project led by Furusawa, also participated.

OptQC's HIQALI program supports use-case exploration and talent development. The new investor group gives OptQC potential partners across telecommunications, electronics, aerospace, finance and other industries. OptQC says it plans to pair its hardware with investors' industry knowledge, datasets and testing environments. Those plans do not establish demand for MoQuren.

Takase has argued that prospective users need to participate before the hardware is finished. In an OptQC report on HIQALI, he described the program as a way to work with companies and give optical quantum computing's value "concrete form." The Series A2 adds corporate investors that could supply use cases, although OptQC has not announced resulting customer deployments or paid trials.

The next processor carries the proof burden

OptQC's immediate goal is a processor with roughly 10,000 qubits and 100 times MoQuren's performance. The target is part of a longer roadmap that calls for a high-speed, large-scale model around 2028 and a qubit-analog hybrid around 2029. OptQC labels those dates tentative.

Room-temperature operation gives OptQC a distinct engineering pitch, but it does not resolve photon loss, error-correction overhead or the difficulty of building a fault-tolerant system. The technical definition of the planned 10,000-qubit processor and the measurement behind the claimed 100-fold performance improvement have not been disclosed.

OptQC is entering a photonic field with several better-established competitors. PsiQuantum is pursuing fault-tolerant machines built with silicon photonics. Xanadu has announced Aurora, a modular and networked photonic system. Quandela delivered a 12-qubit Lucy system to France's CEA in October 2025, while ORCA Computing installed a room-temperature photonic processor at the UK's National Quantum Computing Centre in June 2025.

The Series A2 gives Takase money and industrial partners for the transition from a stable demonstration machine to a faster processor. Evidence will have to come from what MoQuren and its successor can run, how reliably they run it and whether outside developers can turn the hardware into repeatable workloads.