Fan Yaoyuan, a Physics PhD graduate of Peking University in 1998, has closed two consecutive rounds of financing within one month.

A dark horse has emerged in the quantum computing track.

A neutral-atom quantum computing startup — Nakai Quantum (Beijing) Quantum Technology Co., Ltd. — has received consecutive capital bets. It is a young entrepreneurial team from Peking University, which was established only a few months ago and has now completed an angel round of financing exceeding 100 million yuan.

Recently, Nakai Quantum announced the completion of the angel+ round of financing, which is led by old shareholder Changshi Capital, with all angel round investors including GL Ventures, Feitu Venture Capital and others participating in follow-on investment, together with well-known investment institutions and industrial parties such as Qingliu, Yunqi, Woniu and others.

It is worth noting that a month ago, Nakai Quantum just completed its first round of financing led by GL Ventures. Behind the two consecutive rounds of rapid financing are the confidence of investment institutions in the neutral-atom quantum computing technology route, as well as the recognition of the scientific research accumulation and engineering capabilities of the Nakai Quantum team.

In recent years, investment enthusiasm in the quantum computing track has continued to rise. According to data from CVSource by ChinaVenture, the number of investments in China's quantum technology sector in 2025 tripled compared with 2024. As of early March this year, 13 quantum technology companies have received investments, 10 of which belong to the quantum computing field.

From Graduation to Entrepreneurship

Fan Yaoyuan, born in 1998, was selected into the provincial team in the first year of high school with a full score in the physics competition experiment. Later, he was recommended to the School of Physics of Peking University through the competition, and completed his undergraduate studies as a national scholarship winner and outstanding graduate. In the second year of his undergraduate study, he chose cold atoms, a research direction that was still very unpopular at that time. He said that AMO (Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics) is one of the most orthodox directions of physics in his eyes, and "letting atoms sing in unison" is the most romantic Nobel Prize inscription he has ever heard.

At the doctoral stage, he chose to follow Professor Zhou Xiaoji at the Institute of Quantum Electronics, School of Electronics, Peking University to continue his research in the quantum field. Right after enrollment, he took the lead in building the first ultra-cold atom interference gyroscope system in China. Talking about the reason for pursuing further studies in China, he said: "This is the birthplace of cold atom physics in China. The opportunity and experience to independently build a complete set of experimental systems here are very attractive to me, who loves experimental physics."

During years of research in the laboratory, Fan Yaoyuan has long been faced with engineering problems such as manipulating atoms in an extremely low temperature environment, reducing system noise, and improving experimental stability. The ability to solve these engineering problems during his doctoral period echoes his study of physical theory during his undergraduate period, laying a solid foundation for him to lead the team to promote neutral-atom quantum computing from architectural innovation to engineering realization in the future.

Apart from scientific research, Fan Yaoyuan is also a senior outdoor sports enthusiast. During his study at Peking University, he successively served as the captain of the Peking University Rock Climbing Team and Ski Team, founded the first ski mountaineering team in Chinese universities, led the team to climb several 5,000-meter-level snow-capped mountains, and won championships in various national competitions.

"My past experience in the Mountain Eagle Club tells me that where there are high mountains, the heart should go there." Fan Yaoyuan said, "Building a truly practical quantum computer is the high mountain that countless scientific researchers are chasing together. My choice to start a business in quantum computing is a determined climb, and it is also an inevitable choice to integrate personal growth into the national strategic needs."

In January this year, Fan Yaoyuan completed his doctoral studies again as an outstanding graduate, and spoke as one of the graduate representatives at the graduation ceremony of Peking University. In April, he founded Nakai Quantum, recruited a group of young teams with technology, experience, determination and courage, and embarked on the journey of quantum computing together.

At present, the company has established in-depth cooperative relations with its alma mater Peking University, and established the Peking University-Nakai Quantum Joint Laboratory for Quantum Computing. The enterprise not only undertakes product development tasks, but also continuously participates in basic scientific research, aiming to always maintain technological leadership on the long road to quantum computing. Under this model, professors from different research directions of Peking University serve as scientific consultants respectively, and the company sets up special teams around different technical routes, with engineers, doctoral students and postdocs participating in R&D together.

Fan Yaoyuan introduced that this R&D model refers to the organizational method of the world's leading quantum computing enterprises, that is, multiple small teams tackle different technical directions separately, such as developing continuous loading technology, improving quantum gate fidelity, realizing whole-machine interconnection, etc., and finally integrate these technologies into a truly practical quantum computer.

Firmly Choose Neutral Atoms, Promote Industrialization through Architectural Innovation

If quantum computing is compared to a technical competition that has not yet decided the winner, then superconductivity, ion trap and neutral atom are the three mainstream routes currently recognized globally.

The ion trap route was the first to enter the industrialization vision. Its advantage is that the quantum gate fidelity is extremely high, but the long-range crosstalk of charged ions is serious, and the bit expansion cost and engineering difficulty are high.

The superconductivity route is currently the direction with the highest degree of industrialization. Relying on the mature industrialization of semiconductor technology, the artificial circuit qubits have inherent defects, and errors are easy to amplify.

In contrast, the logic of the neutral atom route is closer to "making use of nature". Neutral atoms directly use real atoms as quantum qubits, and capture, arrange and manipulate atoms in a vacuum environment through optical tweezers and optical lattice technology. Since atoms are naturally consistent, neutral atom systems theoretically have stronger scalability. At present, it is very difficult for superconducting quantum computing to achieve dozens of high-quality quantum qubits, while the neutral atom route can already achieve atomic arrays at the thousand or even ten-thousand level. For a future general-purpose quantum computer, this means greater room for imagination.

But scale does not mean everything. To measure a quantum computing system, the industry usually focuses on three core indicators: the number of quantum qubits, fidelity, and continuous operation time. Among these three dimensions, the advantages of neutral atoms are almost all concentrated in scale, while the other two indicators are still recognized as shortcomings in the industry — the fidelity lags behind that of ion traps, and the continuous operation time is only a few hundred milliseconds. After each calculation, the process of atomic capture and cooling must be experienced again.

In 2025, the Harvard University team first verified the "Continuous Loading" technology for neutral atoms. Before that, every time a neutral atom system completed an experiment, it needed to cool and load atoms again, and the system operation time was often only a few hundred milliseconds. The emergence of continuous loading technology directly increases this time to more than two hours, which is regarded as an important turning point for neutral atoms to move towards practical application.

It is at this technological window that Fan Yaoyuan decided to found Nakai Quantum, hoping to promote the quantum technology accumulated over the past ten years to industrialization. And architectural innovation is a key part of it.

Nakai Quantum is one of the very few startups in China that simultaneously deploy ultra-cold atom quantum analog computing and neutral-atom general-purpose quantum computing routes. The name of the company "Nakai" comes from the unit of nanokelvin (nK) in absolute temperature scale, symbolizing the team's core capabilities in extreme cooling and precise atomic manipulation. At present, the team has mastered the key technology of cooling 9 elements and their isotopes including rubidium, potassium, cesium, lithium, sodium, ytterbium, strontium, dysprosium, erbium to the temperature range below 10 nanokelvin, taking the domestic leading position in the types of controllable atoms and ultra-low temperature manipulation capabilities. In addition, the team also has world-class atomic manipulation technologies such as optical lattices and optical tweezers, as well as advanced quantum Monte Carlo algorithms, which can support the R&D of quantum simulation and quantum computing platforms at the same time.

Dual-Drive: Commercialize Analog Computing, Plan for the Future of General-Purpose Computing

In the field of general-purpose quantum computing, neutral atoms are still in a very early stage. It is generally believed in the industry that the general-purpose quantum computer with practical value may take another 5-10 years before large-scale application.

Different from many quantum computing startups that still focus on technology verification, Nakai Quantum has formed an industrialization path from technology R&D to product delivery. At present, the company has completed the delivery of products such as the full quantum simulation machine "Nakai No.1" and cold atom experimental systems, and has received orders of tens of millions of yuan in the market.

In order to avoid the financial pressure brought by the long R&D cycle, Nakai Quantum has formulated a "dual-drive" strategy: on the one hand, explore application scenarios such as material R&D, biopharmaceuticals, and semiconductor simulation through quantum analog computing (special-purpose quantum computers) to accelerate commercial implementation; on the other hand, continuously invest in the R&D of general-purpose quantum computing, and lay out the technological commanding heights for the next decade around key technologies such as continuous loading, high-fidelity manipulation, and whole-machine interconnection.

"At present, in the domestic subdivision direction of ultra-cold atom quantum analog computing, we are the only team that can deliver complete machines in an engineering way, and we are in an absolute leading position." According to Fan Yaoyuan's judgment, quantum simulation is likely to usher in an industrial explosion earlier than general-purpose quantum computing, not only because it is driven by the reality of industrial scenarios, but also because it fully conforms to the first principle of quantum systems. As the physicist Feynman said: "Nature is not classical, but quantum." Since we want to calculate materials, proteins and drugs composed of atoms, the best way is to use quantum systems to simulate them.

Another differentiated capability of Nakai Quantum lies in its coverage of multiple atomic systems. If bosons are like a group of dancers with uniform movements, which are more suitable for building large-scale consistent quantum states, then fermions are more like individuals who strictly abide by the rules, and are more suitable for simulating the behavior of electrons in complex materials. By building an atomic array consistent with the real material structure, researchers can screen a large number of invalid schemes in advance, and then combine traditional computing and artificial intelligence models to quickly find the most potential material combinations.

It is reported that Nakai Quantum has begun to contact enterprises in the fields of semiconductors, materials and AI pharmaceuticals, and the industrial sector will become the key focus of the company in the next stage. Fan Yaoyuan revealed that the company is promoting the R&D of the "Qiyuan No.1" general-purpose quantum computer system, aiming to achieve 3000 quantum qubits and two hours of continuous operation in the second half of the year; the "Nakai No.2" quantum analog computer for the commercial market is planned to be launched in 2027, taking the lead in implementing experimental application scenarios.

After the Quantum Computing Track Becomes a Hit

"It's not news that quantum computing companies get financing, but it's news that they can't get financing." At a closed-door meeting held by ChinaVenture, a person in charge of a quantum enterprise described the current popularity of the quantum track in this way.

In the first quarter of 2026, the total financing amount of China's quantum track reached 3.204 billion yuan, exceeding the total financing scale of 2.473 billion yuan in 2025. At the same time, the Shanghai Stock Exchange revised the Sci-Tech Innovation Board recommendation rules, formally including quantum technology into the scope of strategic emerging industries.

The industry's prosperity stems from the superposition of three major dividends: mature basic quantum theory, continuously breakthrough engineering technology, and the rigid demand for underlying computing power under the global scientific and technological competition.

In the 15th Five-Year Plan, quantum technology is listed as the first of the six future industries, and the core goal clearly puts forward "developing fault-tolerant general-purpose quantum computers and scalable special-purpose quantum computers". This is also the first time that the national plan has put forward "general-purpose quantum computing" and "special-purpose quantum computing" in parallel, which means that the diversification of technical routes has become an important direction for industrial development.

For the future market space, Tian Kaiwen, executive director of Changshi Capital, once gave a very representative judgment: "If Origin Quantum is successfully listed, the valuation of the primary market may continue to rise, and 10 billion yuan or 20 billion yuan is not the end. The key is that the ceiling of this industry is high enough."

However, apart from the capital frenzy, the industry has also entered a new stage. As quantum computing moves from experimental verification to engineering stage, the focus of industry competition will also shift from a single experimental indicator to system integration capability, product delivery capability and long-term technology accumulation.

For startups, quantum computing is not a short-term competition, but a technical breakthrough that requires long-term investment. After all, quantum computing will not change the world overnight, but companies that can persist to the end may be qualified to share the dividends of the next generation of computing revolution.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", written by Wei Xianghui, and released with authorization from 36Kr.