The company will provide an initial US$15 million in cash and stock over the next six months, and an additional US$35 million upon GenMat's realisation of key development milestones. The company said the proceeds will be used to expand on the development efforts of GenMat's founders, with the primary goal of commercialising new quantum computing technologies to accelerate material science discovery and development.
Classical computing relies on binary states in order to complete logical operations and that state is either on or off - for example, ‘true or false' or ‘one or zero'. In contrast, quantum computing is based on physical systems that can be in multiple states simultaneously, with each state having a probability of occurring after measurement. To a quantum computer, that state can simultaneously be black, white and every shade of grey in between.
Comstock explained that the distinction is powerful, and it gives quantum computers the potential to process exponentially more operations far more efficiently than classical computers. GenMat is developing a proprietary quantum operating system to exploit that potential and harness emerging quantum computing technologies to develop breakthrough new materials for use in high-impact applications, including batteries, mining and carbon capture and utilisation.
Corrado De Gasperis, executive chairman and CEO of Comstock Mining, said: "Quantum computing has the profound potential to resolve urgent challenges of our time, such as global resource scarcity and climate change. We have been working for some time on the frontier of new materials development with GenMat's world-class team and network of quantum computing professionals and material scientists.
"We believe that their work will make many positive and disruptive contributions, especially in our existing and planned industries. We are honoured to participate and provide funding and commercialisation support to such an exceptional and growing team of transformational professionals."
While GenMat's intended offerings will be industry agnostic when it emerges from stealth mode, Comstock is focused on applications that accelerate the development of new clean technologies to address resource scarcity by facilitating climate-smart mining, electrification, and decarbonisation.
In addition to its investment in GenMat, Comstock also secured exclusive rights to use GenMat's quantum technologies to complement and enhance its existing operations and planned technological and new business developments.
De Gasperis said: "Comstock's lithium-ion battery operations provide an excellent example of the application potential of GenMat's work. Among other applications, we plan to use GenMat's platform to enhance our extraction and refining of lithium and other scarce electrification metals, and then to design and produce dramatically improved battery components with those and other metals. Even then, we would be barely scratching the surface of the potential that quantum computing technologies offer. We're looking forward to supporting GenMat's development, and using our license rights to systemically maximise financial, natural and social impact for all of our stakeholders."
In February, Comstock Mining invested in battery metals recycling company LiNiCo.
