Quantum Computing Media Visibility Index 2026

761 articles across five English-language publications, January to October 2026.

Two specialist outlets supplied 95.1 percent of the articles, and Fortune was the only business outlet.

IBM Quantum had the most quantum computing media coverage from January through October 2026, with 108 qualifying articles across five English-language outlets. IonQ followed with 78 and Quantinuum with 57. Virgo PR's index screened 4,058 archive posts, retained 761 articles and found coverage of 42 of 44 tracked companies. The top three positions held when either specialist outlet was removed.

Last updated: November 14, 2026

Disclosure: Virgo PR represents Quantum Art, which appears in five qualifying articles. The company was screened with the same rules as every other name on the roster, and removing it leaves the leading positions unchanged. Virgo's Quantum Art case study covers that work separately, and its campaign placement totals cover a different period and a wider mix of formats than this index.

Which quantum computing companies got the most media coverage?

IBM Quantum led the ranking with 108 articles, ahead of IonQ with 78 and Quantinuum with 57. The ranking counts how often a company was a substantive subject of a qualifying article, and every outlet contributes one count per qualifying URL regardless of readership.

• Rank 1, IBM Quantum: 108 articles overall (business 2, technology 3, specialist 103, commercial 13).

• Rank 2, IonQ: 78 articles overall (business 1, technology 3, specialist 74, commercial 17).

• Rank 3, Quantinuum: 57 articles overall (business 2, technology 2, specialist 53, commercial 13).

• Rank 4, IQM Quantum Computers: 47 articles overall (business 0, technology 2, specialist 45, commercial 11).

• Rank 5 (tied), D-Wave: 41 articles overall (business 2, technology 2, specialist 37, commercial 12).

• Rank 5 (tied), Infleqtion: 41 articles overall (business 1, technology 0, specialist 40, commercial 7).

• Rank 7 (tied), Pasqal: 40 articles overall (business 0, technology 1, specialist 39, commercial 8).

• Rank 7 (tied), Xanadu: 40 articles overall (business 1, technology 0, specialist 39, commercial 10).

• Rank 9, Google Quantum AI: 28 articles overall (business 1, technology 1, specialist 26, commercial 1).

• Rank 10, Classiq: 27 articles overall (business 0, technology 2, specialist 25, commercial 8).

• Rank 11, Rigetti Computing: 22 articles overall (business 0, technology 0, specialist 22, commercial 4).

• Rank 12, Alice & Bob: 18 articles overall (business 0, technology 1, specialist 17, commercial 7).

IonQ led the companies whose businesses center on quantum, followed by Quantinuum and IQM. That group includes companies that listed during the observation period, and newly public companies keep their article counts across the whole window. Tied companies are displayed alphabetically, which has no effect on scoring.

The top-five concentration uses distinct article and company pairs as its denominator. The total of 789 attributions exceeds the 761 article URLs because collaborations and industry stories can feature more than one roster company. The workbook behind the index shows all 44 companies, including the two with zero qualifying URLs.

What did the 2026 quantum media index find?

The index found that two specialist publications supplied almost all quantum computing coverage in the panel, and that three companies led regardless of which of them was removed. Virgo PR built the dataset from publisher archives, and the findings below describe the five outlets studied, not all global media.

• The study retained 761 publisher URLs from 4,058 posts returned across five archives, and the eligible articles covered 42 of the 44 tracked entities.

• Quantum Computing Report published 547 qualifying articles and The Quantum Insider published 177, together 724 of 761 or 95.1 percent.

• IBM Quantum, IonQ, Quantinuum and IQM held the first four positions, and D-Wave and Infleqtion both had 41 articles and tied for fifth.

• The top five positions, including both companies tied for fifth, accounted for 372 of 789 company attributions, or 47.1 percent.

• IonQ had 17 articles coded as a customer deployment, commercial partnership or government contract, while IBM Quantum and Quantinuum each had 13.

• Fortune supplied seven eligible articles, and Quantinuum, D-Wave and IBM Quantum had two each.

• Technical performance was the largest named topic at 187 articles, and funding and investment accounted for 35.

Does the quantum media ranking change when an outlet is removed?

The top three positions did not change when either specialist outlet was removed, but the middle of the table moved a lot. Virgo PR ran two outlet-removal tests and a client-removal test to check how much the publication mix drives the result.

• Full five-outlet panel: 761 articles remain, with IBM Quantum at 108, IonQ at 78 and Quantinuum at 57.

• Without Quantum Computing Report: 214 articles remain, with IBM Quantum at 40, IonQ at 21 and Quantinuum at 18.

• Without The Quantum Insider: 584 articles remain, with IBM Quantum at 73, IonQ at 61 and Quantinuum at 43.

Google Quantum AI rose from ninth in the full panel to fourth when Quantum Computing Report was removed. Below the top three, the differences show how strongly a publication mix can change the middle of a coverage table.

Removing Quantum Art, the Virgo PR client, leaves 756 URLs and 784 attributions. The specialist share becomes 720 of 756, or 95.2 percent, and the top five positions still account for 372 attributions, equal to 47.4 percent.

Which publications supplied the quantum coverage?

Quantum Computing Report and The Quantum Insider supplied 724 of the 761 qualifying articles, and the publication panel was the biggest source of variation in the study. The two specialist outlets have different editorial rhythms, and the index applies a strict headline-and-lead rule to both.

• Quantum Computing Report (specialist tier): 547 qualifying articles covering 42 companies.

• The Quantum Insider (specialist tier): 177 qualifying articles covering 30 companies.

• SiliconANGLE (technology tier): 27 qualifying articles covering 21 companies.

• Fortune (business tier): 7 qualifying articles covering 8 companies.

• TechCrunch (technology tier): 3 qualifying articles covering 2 companies.

Coverage outside the trade press was narrow. Fortune reached eight roster companies, the two technology outlets reached 23, and the specialists reached 42. A mention in one technology publication gives a company another outlet in its outlet count but leaves its business tier count unchanged.

Representative qualifying stories show the range. Fortune's report on quantum stocks rising after US executive orders is a market story, SiliconANGLE's report on Intel buying Classiq is an acquisition story, and TechCrunch's report on IQM preparing to go public follows a listing. The Quantum Insider's report on Quantinuum's expanded IPO and Quantum Computing Report's story on the Atom Computing and Cisco collaboration show the specialist side.

Frequent bylines in the retained records included Mohamed Abdel-Kareem and Doug Finke at Quantum Computing Report, Mohib Ur Rehman and Matt Swayne at The Quantum Insider, and Mike Wheatley and Maria Deutscher at SiliconANGLE. Anna Heim wrote the three retained TechCrunch pieces. The directory measures output in the study window and does not measure readership or influence.

What did the quantum computing articles cover?

Technical performance was the largest named topic with 187 articles, followed by commercial partnerships with 105 and customer deployments with 51. The category called other had 222 articles and holds headlines that did not match the predefined subject cues, including corporate updates and some finance or research stories.

• Other: 222 articles.

• Technical performance: 187 articles.

• Commercial partnership: 105 articles.

• Market or financial performance: 58 articles.

• Customer deployment: 51 articles.

• Acquisitions: 44 articles.

• Funding and investment: 35 articles.

• Manufacturing and infrastructure: 19 articles.

• National competitiveness: 16 articles.

• Executive commentary: 12 articles.

• Research publication: 11 articles.

• Scientific breakthrough: 1 article.

The index keeps market or financial performance (58 articles) and acquisitions (44) apart from funding. A report about access to capital is a different story from one about corporate control, a trading debut, earnings or market reaction, and splitting them explains why the non-funding categories still carry significant financial content.

All 51 articles coded as customer deployment came from the two specialist outlets, as did 103 of the 105 commercial partnership articles. That partly reflects the size of the specialist archives, so comparing raw totals across tiers without that context would confuse editorial preference with publishing output.

Which companies had the most commercial milestone coverage?

IonQ had the most articles coded to commercial milestones with 17, followed by IBM Quantum and Quantinuum with 13 each and D-Wave with 12. The category covers customer deployments, commercial partnerships and government contracts, and it includes public commitments and partnership announcements.

• IonQ: 17 commercial articles, 8 coded as deployment and 9 as partnership.

• IBM Quantum: 13 commercial articles, 5 coded as deployment and 8 as partnership.

• Quantinuum: 13 commercial articles, 1 coded as deployment and 12 as partnership.

• D-Wave: 12 commercial articles, 4 coded as deployment and 8 as partnership.

• IQM Quantum Computers: 11 commercial articles, 10 coded as deployment and 1 as partnership.

The split depends on a single primary headline subject. A story about an installation carried out with a partner may be coded as deployment, while a road map involving two companies may sit under partnerships. The cut does not establish a count of systems in operation, because a cloud roadmap describes a future goal and a delivery report describes an operational event. Quantum Computing Report's story on a SEEQC memorandum with Taiwan's quantum industry office is an example of a partnership coded from an announced agreement.

How much business and executive coverage did quantum companies get?

Business coverage in the panel rests on Fortune alone, which published seven eligible articles. They include a company profile, a response to a short-seller report, a story about public-market reaction to US executive orders and a piece on what a Google research finding might mean for older Bitcoin wallets.

Fortune's reporting on IonQ disputing a short-seller report, its profile of Xanadu's chief executive and its piece on the quantum threat to Bitcoin wallets show the business angles in the panel.

SiliconANGLE covered the same Google Quantum AI research from a different angle, with its report on quantum computers breaking Bitcoin encryption sooner than expected describing the computing resources the researchers estimated would be needed to break cryptocurrency encryption. The index credits both articles to Google Quantum AI because the research was substantive to each, and the two publications made separate editorial decisions about what readers needed to understand.

Three direct interviews are documented in the evidence register. Fortune interviewed D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz in its acquisition coverage, SiliconANGLE interviewed Q-CTRL founder Michael Biercuk at IBM Think, and TechCrunch quoted a direct interview with IQM co-founder Jan Goetz in its listing coverage. A separate Fortune article cited an earlier interview with IonQ CEO Niccolo de Masi.

A profile of Xanadu founder Christian Weedbrook gave readers a founder narrative built partly on remarks another outlet had reported earlier. The register covers examples only and supports no cross-company ranking or industry-wide expert-quotation rate.

What does the 2026 funding record show about media visibility?

The funding register records eight sourced 2026 financing disclosures in their original currencies, and coverage counts for the companies involved varied widely. The register includes Oxford Quantum Circuits' £260 million Series C, Quobly's €115 million Series A, Quantum Motion's US$160 million Series C and Quantum Art's US$40 million extension.

• Quobly: €115 million Series A, with 16 articles in the full window.

• Oxford Quantum Circuits: £260 million Series C, with 8 articles in the full window.

• Quantum Motion: US$160 million Series C, with 8 articles in the full window.

• Quantum Art: US$40 million extension, with 5 articles in the full window.

Quantum Art's extension and its December 2025 initial close together brought the announced Series A to US$140 million. The article counts describe all retained subjects across the whole observation window, include coverage outside each financing announcement and use the same archive rules for all four companies. SiliconANGLE's reports on Quantum Motion's raise and Quobly's raise are examples of financing stories in the panel.

This edition makes no funding-efficiency claim. A valid lifetime funding comparison needs a consistent cutoff and denominator, with equity separated from grants, debt, commitments, acquisition values and IPO proceeds. The primary records here describe different types of closes: Photonic announced a first close, and the source for Universal Quantum reported a lower bound. The register preserves those distinctions and includes no currency conversion, correlation or coverage-per-dollar measure. For deal context, see Virgo's 2026 quantum funding report.

How does quantum coverage vary by country and architecture?

US-labeled companies accounted for 468 attributions, far ahead of France with 85, Canada with 51, Finland with 50 and Israel with 41. The UK had 39 and Australia had 29. China contributed seven across the two roster entities assigned to it.

• Superconducting: 221 attributions.

• Trapped ion: 145 attributions.

• Neutral atom: 108 attributions.

• Photonic: 92 attributions.

These are counts attached to roster classifications, and the outlets primarily publish in English. The design favors companies these publications cover regularly, so it cannot establish national performance or a worldwide media share.

Each company carries one primary architecture label, so hybrid platforms and multi-modality businesses appear under the roster's single descriptive label. D-Wave's 41 attributions, for example, sit under the annealing and superconducting label. The architecture view therefore shows which kinds of companies received attention, while the topic breakdown shows what the articles were about.

What should quantum founders do with these findings?

Quantum founders should match each announcement to the outlet tier that covers that kind of story, and give reporters evidence in the form that tier uses. In this panel, specialist reporters followed technical systems, deployments and collaborations in detail, while the few business stories approached the industry through market consequences, public policy, funding, risk and executive profiles.

A founder who can explain the business consequence of a technical milestone in plain terms gives a business reporter a reason to run a story beyond the milestone itself. Virgo's guide to media coverage for quantum startups covers the outreach steps in full.

For commercial announcements, tell the reporter whether a system is funded, contracted, installed or in use. Name the customer or joint partner when disclosure is permitted, and document what changed. The dataset contains several stories that announce a plan, so deployment dates, a customer spokesperson and the scope of the first workload help a journalist report precisely.

The evidence also separates a continuing technical program from a single financing event. Quobly had financing coverage as well as coverage of commercial partnerships and technical performance, and IQM's TechCrunch stories followed its move from listing plans to a public-market debut. A communications team can use the register to see which parts of its own chronology drew attention. Broader planning advice sits in the quantum computing PR strategy guide, and the quantum PR overview links the rest of Virgo's quantum work.

How was the quantum media index built, and what are its limits?

The index counts qualifying articles from five publisher archives against a fixed roster of 44 companies, and it reports raw article counts with no composite score. The roster was frozen from 44 candidate names before article qualification. It includes four diversified corporate units and 40 quantum-focused companies or enabling businesses, and it is a purposive roster that leaves out other companies in the industry.

Virgo PR retrieved WordPress post archives for five publications using the same quantum keyword and publisher-local date limits, across every returned page. A company name or predeclared alias in the headline, or a lead match paired with a quantum headline, identified candidates for screening. General-outlet candidates were coded manually. Specialist rows required a name match in both the headline and lead, and passed rules for ambiguous aliases, excluded formats and out-of-scope adjacent technology.

The Quantum Insider screen additionally kept two staff bylines and removed explicitly labeled press release reproductions. Original publisher reporting that cites a press release may qualify. Distinct canonical publisher URLs were counted once, and independently written articles about the same announcement can both count.

Several checks support the counts. All 761 rows fall inside the observation window and all URL strings are unique, with 789 unique article and company pairs reconciling to the rankings. A stratified sample of 27 URLs was reopened directly on publisher sites and all returned HTTP 200. Specialist coding is automated and provisional at the row level, and no exhaustive semantic duplicate review was run.

The index has limits a reader should weigh. The archive term and specialist matching rule can miss articles whose text or headlines use alternate terms or emphasize a customer. The design cannot say who led all global media, and it cannot show whether a funding event or commercial announcement caused coverage. Publisher metadata alone cannot show whether an undisclosed paid relationship exists, and a single business outlet limits conclusions about mainstream media.

The planqc case shows what a zero in the workbook means. One archive story about German fault-tolerant computing consortia mentions planqc in the lead only, and the specialist rule kept only companies also named in the headline, so it did not count. A story on Multiverse Computing's compressed AI models was excluded because quantum computing was not its primary subject. Ownership also changed during the period: the workbook records verified listings for Quantinuum, IQM, Xanadu, Pasqal and Infleqtion, and notes Intel's announced Classiq transaction. Each article follows the operating company named in the story.

The next edition will cover November 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027 using the same five archive queries, with the original panel reported alongside any expanded panel. The article-level register behind this edition, including URLs, bylines, exclusions and funding sources, is available from Virgo PR on request.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as quantum computing coverage in this index?

Coverage means a publisher article whose subject qualifies under the documented screen. Company-owned posts, identified press release reproductions, excluded formats and out-of-scope mentions are screened out.

Can one article credit two companies?

Yes. In a substantive joint story each company can receive one attribution, while the URL adds one to the corpus total. That is why the index has 789 attributions across 761 articles.

How does this index relate to the 5W AI visibility index?

The 5W index measured citation and naming patterns in AI-generated answers. Virgo's index counts articles from a fixed publisher panel, so the two studies answer different questions.

Why did some companies register zero qualifying articles?

No record passed this particular search and subject screen for those two companies. Coverage elsewhere, and stories that use different wording, can exist.

Did Virgo PR include a client in the study?

Yes. Quantum Art, a Virgo PR client, appeared in five articles. Removing its company attribution leaves the leading positions unchanged.

Can this index identify technical leaders in quantum computing?

No. The rankings describe editorial output. Scientific performance, commercial readiness and investment quality each need separate evidence.