Quantum Computing IPO Makes A British Pakistani Billionaire

Ilyas Khan, the British Pakistan founder of Quantinuum, became a billionaire in the company’s IPO on NASDAQ last week. Khan is a pioneer in the revolutionary field of quantum computing which could speed up computing by orders of magnitude. It will have a huge impact in AI and encryption. Dr. Irfan Siddiqui, a Pakistani-American professor of Physics at University of California at Berkeley, is another top expert in quantum computing. 

Ilyas Khan, British Pakistani Founder of Quantinuum. Source: 2023 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP


Quantinuum raised $1.68 billion in an initial public offering last week, making its founder Illyas Khan a billionaire, according to Forbes. The listing, which is the largest to date for a quantum startup, valued Quantinuum at over $15.6 billion after it sold 28 million shares at $60 each on June 3. Its shares opened at $58 per share on June 9. Khan, who owns around 15% of the company, is now worth $2.2 billion. Quantinuum uses a new type of quantum computer; rather than running on silicon chips, it instead uses ions trapped in place with lasers to execute computations. 

Ilyas Khan is the founder and former CEO of Cambridge Quantum, which merged with Honeywell's quantum division to form Quantinuum, now regarded as a global leader in quantum technologies valued at over $15 billion. He is involved directly in Pakistan's technology sector, where he provides guidance on integrating high-level quantum technologies into Pakistan's growing tech infrastructure.

Dr. Irfan Siddiqui, Professor at UC Berkeley


In quantum computing, a qubit or quantum bit is the basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classical binary bit physically realized with a two-state device. Here's how Dr. Siddiqui explained quantum computing in an interview with Design News:

"For me, any quantum technology, including quantum computing, is something that takes advantage of entanglement. And entanglement is the idea that if you have different pieces of matter and you put them together, they behave as a single unit. So, for example, each of the bits in a classical computer are independent of each other. If you flip one, it doesn't affect the one next to it. In quantum computers all of these bits have correlation with each other so they're all tied together like one big mass. In fact, the number of states that they can occupy is exponentially larger because of these linkages between neighboring elements. Quantum computing is the science of manipulating this entangled set of bits for some particular problem of interest in either fundamental science and computation or to do a simulation of the natural world."

Four of Ten Pakistani-American Founders of Unicorns


Pakistanis' footprint is growing in the western tech ecosystem. Ten Pakistani immigrants are included among founders or co-founders of unicorns in America, according to  a recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). A unicorn is a startup with a valuation of at least one billion U.S. dollars. Immigrant entrepreneurs of US unicorns are diverse, hailing from 76 different countries. India, with 96 companies, is the leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of U.S. billion-dollar companies. Immigrants from Israel founded the second-most billion-dollar companies with 60, followed by the United Kingdom (47), China (41), Canada (30), Russia (23), France (21), Germany (18), Ukraine (16), Australia (14), Pakistan (10) and Romania (10). Some companies were founded by entrepreneurs from the same country or immigrants from multiple countries.

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Comment by Riaz Haq on June 13, 2026 at 11:07am

Department of Commerce Announces Letters of Intent With 9 Companies (including Quantinuum) for $2 Billion to Accelerate U.S. Leadership in Quantum Computing | NIST

Quantum portfolio spans multiple modalities and addresses discrete technology challenges

The structure of the Department of Commerce’s proposed incentives is intended to provide capital toward an initial portfolio of 7 companies that will address the most consequential, unresolved engineering problems in multiple quantum modalities.

“The CHIPS R&D Office is taking a portfolio approach to strengthen and accelerate U.S. leadership across multiple quantum modalities at once, while focusing each award on discrete technological problems of genuine consequence,” said Bill Frauenhofer, Executive Director of Semiconductor Investment and Innovation. “We will be providing incentives to build domestic quantum capacity, solve the hardest engineering challenges, enable multi-year acceleration of technology roadmaps, and drive continued U.S. quantum leadership.”

The companies listed below receiving CHIPS incentives will address multiple modalities including neutral atom, silicon-spin, superconducting, photonic, and trapped ion and accelerate R&D for the most consequential unresolved engineering problems including device reproducibility, optical complexity, error rates, cryogenic systems integration, control hardware, ultra-fast readout electronics, photonic loss, and interconnects.

  • Atom Computing will receive $100 million in planned funding to address key technical and manufacturing challenges for neutral-atom quantum computing, including hardware development and systems integration needed to manipulate, control, and address tens of thousands of qubits, and validate their performance.
  • Diraq will receive up to $38 million in planned funding to develop and scale quantum logic units and accelerate critical manufacturing and integration capabilities for silicon spin quantum computing technologies, including novel designs for large-scale and reliable qubit arrays.
  • D-Wave will receive $100 million in planned funding for critical advancements in annealing and gate-model superconducting quantum computing systems, including qubit counts, error rates, and coherence through advanced dielectric material optimization, interface control, and high-density advanced packaging.
  • Infleqtion will receive $100 million in planned funding to develop the underlying engineering systems and integration requirements for large-scale neutral-atom-based quantum computers and architectures, including high-powered optical systems, novel readout and error correction systems.
  • PsiQuantum will receive $100 million in planned funding to address key photonic quantum computing technical challenges for matured and high-performance electro-optic materials, high-temperature single-photon detectors, and ultra-low-loss photonic packaging.
  • Quantinuum will receive $100 million in planned funding to address critical technology and manufacturing bottlenecks for scaling of fault-tolerant trapped-ion-based quantum computers, such as low-loss integrated photonics, and reliable optical components at trapped-ion critical wavelengths.
  • Rigetti will receive up to $100 million in planned funding to address key technical challenges to develop and scale next generation superconducting quantum computing technologies and architectures, such as miniaturizing and integrating novel readout electronics and next generation cryostat architectures.
Comment by Riaz Haq on June 13, 2026 at 4:53pm

, with the global number of tech companies started by Pakistani-origin founders accelerating. Leading examples span AI, blockchain, fintech, and health tech, spearheaded by visionary entrepreneurs. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Prominent Pakistani founders of unicorn and decacorn startups include:
  • Sualeh Asif: The 26-year-old from Karachi co-founded Cursor, an AI-powered coding platform. The company achieved a staggering valuation, making Asif one of the youngest self-made billionaires globally. [1, 2, 3]
  • Zia Chishti: A serial entrepreneur who holds the rare distinction of founding multiple unicorns. He is best known for creating Align Technology (the maker of Invisalign) and co-founding the enterprise AI company Afiniti. [1, 2, 3]
  • Mo Shaikh: A Pakistani-American who co-founded Aptos, a major Layer-1 blockchain platform that reached a $4.5+ billion valuation. [1]
  • Suneera Madhani: A first-generation Pakistani-American who founded Stax Payments, a leading fintech software and payments unicorn. [1]
  • Ilyas Khan: A British-Pakistani entrepreneur who founded Cambridge Quantum, which later merged with Honeywell to become Quantinuum, a multi-billion dollar quantum computing giant. [1]
Note: Data tracking indicates a significant portion of these founders are part of an evolving "Visa to Venture" pipeline, utilizing degrees from institutions like MIT and scaling companies globally. [1, 2]
Comment by Riaz Haq on June 16, 2026 at 7:59am

SpaceX Agrees to Buy #AI Coding Agent #Cursor for $60 Billion. One of Cursor’s cofounders is Asif Sualeh, an immigrant from #Pakistan. Sualeh, now a #SanFrancisco-based #tech billionaire, was born and raised in Karachi.#SpaceX

https://www.wsj.com/business/spacex-agrees-to-buy-ai-coding-agent-c...

Cursor kicked off the “vibe-coding” era and already brings in billions of dollars in annualized revenue. It was started by four MIT graduates (including Asif Sualeh from Pakistan) in 2023 as an encrypted-messaging startup, but has expanded into AI coding tools.

Cursor makes a tool that allows developers to toggle between different AI models, from OpenAI and Anthropic to xAI and Google and others. The company competes with Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, which can write code, debug software and automate tasks.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 22, 2026 at 8:17pm

Unicorns founded or cofounded by Pakistani immigrants in America:

Anysphere Cursor Sualeh Asif
Applied Intuition Qaisar Younis
Temporal Samar Abbas
Hippocratic AI Saad Godil
Motive Obaid Khan
Cresta Zaid Enam
Cart.com Omair Tariq
Avathon Amir Husain
Nimble Talha Sattar
Aptos Mo Shaikh

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