Infleqtion has executed a $6.2 million contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E to launch the Enhancing Neutral-atom Computers for Optimizing Delivery of Energy (ENCODE) project. This initiative represents the first Department of Energy (DOE) quantum program specifically targeted at utilizing quantum-enhanced computational methods to optimize energy grid efficiency and resilience. The program aims to address the limitations of current industry-standard solvers, such as Gurobi and CPLEX, which are reaching computational ceilings due to the rising complexity of power systems fueled by electrification and AI-driven data center demand.
The technical roadmap utilizes Infleqtion’s full-stack neutral-atom architecture, integrating its 1,600-qubit arrays with the Superstaq optimization software layer. This co-design approach is intended to provide the precision required for complex power dispatch and resource optimization while operating on a kilowatt-scale power budget—significantly lower than the megawatt-scale requirements of classical high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. The project builds on Infleqtion’s recent milestone of achieving 12 logical qubits with error detection, providing a hardware-software pathway for executing optimization algorithms in real-world grid environments.
The ENCODE project involves strategic collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory, the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)—formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)—EPRI, and ComEd. This ecosystem partnership is designed to validate quantum-enhanced logic for secure, low-latency grid management. The contract execution occurs as Infleqtion finalized its transition to a public entity through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp X (NASDAQ: CCCX), with the combined company expected to list on the NYSE under the ticker INFQ in early 2026.
Read the official announcement from Infleqtion here and refer to our previous coverage of the grant award here.
February 10, 2026
