NEWS
Photonic raises $ 180M CAD to advance distributed quantum computing and networking
Photonic has raised $ 180M CAD($ 130M USD) in the first close of its latest funding round led by Planet First Partners, with participation from Royal Bank of Canada, TELUS and other new investors.
Existing investors including BCI and Microsoft also joined, bringing total capital raised to $ 375M CAD($ 271M USD).
The funding accelerates Photonic’ s roadmap toward fault-tolerant quantum systems powered by its Entanglement First Architecture.
The company integrates silicon-based qubits with native photonic connectivity, enabling scalable quantum computing across existing global telecom infrastructure. Proceeds will support product milestones, commercialization efforts, team expansion and deeper customer and partner engagement.
Planet First Partners Managing Partner Nathan Medlock joins the Board, citing quantum computing’ s potential to drive breakthroughs in clean energy, advanced materials and health. Photonic’ s distributed architecture, he said, offers a credible path toward utility-scale systems capable of advancing battery innovation, low-carbon catalysts and drug discovery.
Photonic CEO Paul Terry said the round attracted financial investors and strategic partners across sustainability, telecommunications, finance and security.
Royal Bank of Canada highlighted potential applications in security, portfolio optimization and risk modeling.
TELUS emphasized quantum’ s role in reshaping secure telecommunications infrastructure and strengthening Canada’ s leadership in advanced technologies.
BCI reaffirmed its support following strong technical progress and capital efficiency. Evercore served as sole placement agent for the financing.
Canadian Government and Microsoft AI Investments accelerate First Tellurium’ s thermoelectric data center technology
First Tellurium says recent AI investment announcements by the Canadian government and Microsoft are reinforcing its strategy to advance tubular thermoelectric technology for AI data centers.
Designed and built by subsidiary PyroDelta Energy, the device captures waste heat from data centers and converts it into clean, reliable supplemental electricity.
Under Canada’ s Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, the federal government is committing nearly $ 2 billion over five years to strengthen AI infrastructure and expand national compute capacity for innovators, businesses and researchers.
Microsoft recently announced that it will invest $ 7.5 billion in Canadian AI infrastructure over the next two years, underscoring growing private sector confidence in Canada’ s AI economy.
“ Our tubular thermoelectric design is the only one of its kind in the world – we are uniquely positioned to deliver this power generation solution to the AI industry,” said Michael Abdelmaseh, PyroDelta Head Engineer.
First Tellurium President and CEO Tyrone Docherty said the company plans to engage AI data center operators and government stakeholders to deploy the technology within new and existing facilities.
The company has retained a consultant to connect with provincial and federal officials to help advance funding opportunities across AI, defense and energy efficiency sectors, he said.
PyroDelta’ s system integrates with immersion cooling processes, channelling heated liquid through a radiator tube where temperature differentials generate consistent electricity with no moving parts.
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