Intel to Buy Quantum Software Firm Classiq

Intel wants to sell quantum processors alongside its CPUs and GPUs, and it has agreed to buy the software company it hopes will make them usable. The chipmaker said on 26 October that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Classiq, a Tel Aviv quantum software company, in a move it says “would create a user-friendly full-stack quantum computing platform” (Intel).

Intel did not give a price. Israeli business site Ctech reported that Intel will pay $2.3bn in a combination of cash and stock. Ctech called it the most expensive acquisition of a quantum company to date by a significant margin, ahead of the $1bn IonQ paid for Oxford Ionics last year.

The deal gives Intel a software layer to go with the quantum hardware it has been building in-house for a decade. The transaction needs regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the first half of 2027. Until then, the two companies will run as separate, independent businesses.

In brief

Intel has a definitive agreement to buy quantum software firm Classiq; it disclosed no price.
Ctech reports $2.3bn in cash and stock, which it calls a record for a quantum deal.
Intel plans to add quantum processors (QPUs) to its CPU, GPU and ASIC range.
Closing is expected in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.

Intel is adding quantum processors to its line-up

Classiq makes software that turns a high-level description of a quantum program into the low-level circuits a machine actually runs. Intel’s release compares its role to the chip-design (EDA) tools that took over from hand-drawn circuit layouts more than 40 years ago, and says the platform is “agnostic to the underlying qubit modality and hardware”.

Intel says the deal will let it “add Quantum Processing Units (QPUs)” to a portfolio that already spans CPUs, GPUs and application-specific chips (ASICs). Its own approach uses silicon spin qubits, tiny quantum bits made with the same kind of manufacturing used for ordinary chips. The company claims it is now “the only company capable of producing qubit chips and complex cryogenic control electronics at-scale”, a claim TSN has not been able to check. Manufacturing is a recurring theme in quantum hardware: D-Wave recently extended its deal with SkyWater to keep its chips coming out of a Minnesota fab, while Intel is still building out its own US factories.

“Joining forces with Classiq transforms Intel’s Quantum Computing Group into a full-stack quantum computing business,” said Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s chief executive. Nir Minerbi, Classiq’s co-founder and CEO, said the two companies “can help unlock the benefits of quantum computing and accelerate its adoption sooner.”

Intel also used its official X account to say it has agreed to acquire Classiq, repeating the promise to support “a modality-and hardware-agnostic software solution”.

Ctech reports a record price and $100m to keep staff

According to Ctech, Classiq employs around 150 people, and Intel has set aside more than $100m in retention grants to keep them. Ctech reported that the company had raised about $200m and has revenue in the tens of millions of dollars, and that its $110m round in 2025 valued it at an estimated $600m to $700m. Its customers, the paper said, include BMW, Rolls-Royce, HSBC, Deloitte, Toshiba and Citi.

There is also a personal link. Ctech reported that Tan invested in Classiq’s $33m Series B round in February 2022, before he became Intel’s CEO, and that in a September podcast interview he called Classiq a possible “next Cadence”. According to sources close to Classiq, Ctech said, Tan recused himself from discussions about the acquisition. Intel’s release does not mention his stake.

For the UK, the deal touches existing work. Classiq announced in June that it and Rolls-Royce had tested a hybrid classical-quantum workflow for engineering fluid simulations, on a smaller-scale test case. Its press page also lists projects at the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre run on IonQ hardware, the same company now running a research centre in Cambridge.

Classiq’s value depends on staying neutral

The awkward part of this deal is that Classiq’s customers and partners include Intel’s rivals. Its press page lists an up-round backed by IonQ, AMD and Qualcomm Ventures, and work with Nvidia’s CUDA-Q platform. A compiler is most useful when it targets every machine, which is why Intel has gone out of its way, in both the release and its X post, to promise that the software will stay hardware-agnostic. That pledge will be tested the first time Intel’s own spin-qubit chips get a feature or optimisation that other hardware makers wait for.

The price matters too. A $2.3bn figure, if accurate, is a large multiple of the revenue Ctech describes, and of the valuation Classiq reached only last year. Spending on a software layer suggests Intel thinks the shortage in quantum is users, not qubits. Smaller full-stack players such as Spain’s Qilimanjaro build their own software alongside their chips; Intel has chosen to buy one ready-made.

The retention grants show where the value sits. Intel’s own risk warnings list “the retention of key Classiq personnel and customers”, and both depend on Classiq still looking independent once it is part of a chipmaker.

Investors may get their first chance to ask Intel about the deal when Intel reports its third-quarter results on Thursday, 29 October, three days after announcing it without a price.