The Year of Quantum: McKinsey’s 2025 Quantum Technology Monitor Highlights a $100 Billion Market Surge by 2035
June 23, 2025 — In a landmark year for quantum technology (QT), McKinsey & Company has released its fourth annual Quantum Technology Monitor report, revealing that surging investments and accelerated breakthroughs have positioned the quantum market to potentially reach $100 billion within the next decade. This milestone coincides with the United Nations declaring 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, commemorating 100 years since the foundational principles of quantum mechanics were established.
Quantum Technology Moving From Concept to Reality
McKinsey’s comprehensive report underscores a pivotal transition in the quantum technology landscape. After years focused on scaling quantum bits, or qubits, 2024 marked a shift toward stabilizing these quantum units — a critical step signaling that quantum solutions may soon become robust, secure, and reliable enough for widespread adoption in mission-critical industries. Particularly notable is the growing momentum in quantum communication, which promises unprecedented security and is expected to catalyze broader uptake across sectors.
Understanding Quantum Technology’s Three Pillars
The report delineates QT into three core subfields:
-
Quantum Computing: Leveraging quantum mechanics principles to achieve superior computational power and unlock capabilities beyond classical computers.
-
Quantum Communication: Facilitating the secure exchange of quantum information over distances, promising communications impervious to even unlimited quantum computational attacks.
-
Quantum Sensing: Employing quantum-based sensors that measure physical quantities such as electromagnetic fields, gravity, or time with sensitivities vastly exceeding classical alternatives.
These pillars together are forecasted to generate approximately $97 billion in global revenue by 2035, with quantum computing representing the lion’s share—growing from an estimated $4 billion in 2024 to up to $72 billion in 2035. Industries poised for the greatest quantum impact include chemicals, life sciences, finance, and mobility.
Rapid Investment Growth Reflects Industry Confidence
Investment in QT start-ups reached new heights in 2024, capturing nearly $2.0 billion globally—a 50% increase from $1.3 billion in 2023. Private sector contributions from venture capital and private equity firms accounted for approximately two-thirds ($1.3 billion), although public funding surged to make up 34% ($680 million) of total investments, reflecting heightened governmental urgency to nurture quantum innovation.
Key notable investments include SoftBank’s partnership with Quantinuum, Aramco’s backing of Pasqal, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology collaborating with QuEra and IonQ, and Qatar Investment Authority’s involvement with Alice & Bob. Late-stage companies PsiQuantum and Quantinuum together attracted half of the total 2024 funding, highlighting investor confidence in more mature quantum enterprises.
Revenue from quantum computing companies alone is estimated to have reached between $650 million and $750 million in 2024, with projections surpassing $1 billion in 2025, driven by expansion in deploying quantum hardware within private industry and defense sectors.
Emerging Quantum Innovation Clusters
The quantum start-up ecosystem is increasingly concentrated in innovation hubs that amalgamate start-up accelerators, academia, research centers, and investors. These clusters often feature new manufacturing and quantum computing facilities developed in partnership with regional and national authorities. Growing ecosystems have been identified in Asia—particularly Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo—as well as in the United States, including Illinois and Maryland.
Governments Amplify Quantum Funding Commitments
Beyond investments focused directly on start-ups, government funding for QT initiatives totaled $1.8 billion in 2024. Australia notably pledged $620 million to support PsiQuantum’s construction of the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer in Brisbane. Illinois committed $500 million toward establishing a quantum technology park, while Singapore invested roughly $222 million to expand its QT research and talent programs. Five of the nineteen new quantum start-ups founded in 2024 originated from Asia, emphasizing the region’s strengthened role in quantum innovation.
This trend of state-backed financing accelerated early in 2025 with Japan’s $7.4 billion commitment and Spain’s $900 million pledge, pushing overall announced public funding above $10 billion for the sector.
Breakthroughs and Innovations Pave the Way for Deployment
For the first time in the four-year history of McKinsey’s Quantum Technology Monitor, the industry is witnessing a transition from development toward deployment. Significant innovations in 2024 enhanced the safety, security, and reliability of quantum technology, with major contributions from industry leaders such as Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Key advances include reducing error rates even as qubit numbers grow, creating multiple high-fidelity qubits, and cutting the costs of quantum error correction.
Quantum Control Systems Gain Ground
Start-ups and established players alike made strides in quantum control—comprising hardware and software essential for qubit initialization, gate operations, error correction, and measurement readouts. An example is the Australian start-up Q-CTRL’s collaboration with Nvidia and Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) to overcome computational bottlenecks in quantum error suppression. Other prominent contributors include IBM, Keysight Technologies, Kipu Quantum, Quantum Machines, Qedma, and Zurich Instruments, all advancing the capabilities of quantum control technologies.
Breakthroughs in Quantum Error Correction
Error correction remains a cornerstone for scalable quantum computing. In 2024, Google unveiled its Willow quantum computing chip featuring 105 physical qubits that significantly advanced error correction capabilities and performance metrics. Willow demonstrated the ability to execute specific complex calculations exponentially faster than classical supercomputers, maintaining a low error rate crucial for practical applications.
Quantum computing start-ups also made progress in this domain, exemplified by emerging solutions focusing on refining error correction techniques to increase quantum system fidelity.
Looking Ahead: A Quantum Revolution on the Horizon
McKinsey’s analysis projects that the quantum technology market could escalate to $198 billion by 2040 as technological progress, adoption rates, and scaling improve. The ongoing fusion of private enthusiasm, public funding, and accelerating innovation signals that QT is moving beyond theory and prototypes toward becoming an indispensable component of the global technology ecosystem.
As quantum capabilities mature, the chemical, pharmaceutical, financial services, mobility, and defense sectors are poised to harvest transformative benefits, heralding a new era where quantum technology reshapes industries and drives economic growth.
For full details, the Quantum Technology Monitor 2025 report is available via McKinsey & Company’s website, encompassing detailed insights into market dynamics, investment trends, technology advances, and strategic implications across the quantum technology landscape.
