Highly asymmetric. Brazil is the only country with something that can be called an ecosystem, and even there 2026 is the year machines start to arrive — not a mature revenue market.
Maturity labels are the brief’s own assessments, late 2026. On-prem hardware in Brazil was still arriving or on order.
Country
Government
Local hardware
Industry
Maturity
Brazil
MCTI, FAPESP QuTIa, EMBRAPII QuIIN, state CIQuanta
CETC systems for Paraíba; IQM Spark ordered
Thin but real
Regional leader, still early
Argentina
PIFCyTC; CNEA lines
Fluxonium 4–8 qubits under development
Very thin
Strong science, weak industry
Chile
ANID Anillo Quantü
Neutral-atom build starting
No QC unicorns
Academic build
Colombia
MinCiencias calls
Ion trap in development
Essentially none
Policy + lab seed
Uruguay
No large national plan found
None known
Quantum-South
One real company
Peru
No industrial plan found
None known
None significant
Community node
Others
—
—
—
Negligible industry found
Brazil
Early commercial
National programmes, a metropolitan QKD experiment, device labs, a competence centre, teaching hardware, a thin startup layer, and — new in 2026 — on-premises procurement. Until those machines are actually up, most “quantum computers” in the country were simulators or pedagogical devices. The private sector is software, post-quantum security, and education. There is almost no domestic full-stack qubit OEM. Foreign systems (CETC, IQM, SpinQ teaching units, an Atos-class simulator) are the hardware path.
Programmes
IBQuântica / MCTI. Folha reported in April 2025 a plan to mobilise about R$ 5 billion through 2034. Treat that as stated ambition, not cash fully appropriated. Execution is clearer at project level than as a single statute.
QuIIN at SENAI CIMATEC, Salvador. EMBRAPII competence centre with MCTI. Investment reported at R$ 60 million. Continuous-variable QKD, training, and startup incubation. Coordinator Valéria Loureiro da Silva.
LAQCC on the same campus, historically with Atos (now Eviden). Hosts the Kuatomu simulator, up to about 35 qubits on classical HPC. An IBM Quantum Network hub listing in third-party directories is secondary — confirm against IBM’s live list.
FAPESP QuTIa (launched 11 December 2024): R$ 150 million over five years for São Paulo. Public coordination includes Gustavo Wiederhecker, Ben Hur Viana Borges, and Felipe Fanchini.
INCT-DQ at CNPEM, Campinas, activated 2025. About 13 institutions. Devices, metrology, sensing.
CIQuanta in João Pessoa, Paraíba. About R$ 150 million. Two superconducting systems from China’s CETC, 20 and 100 qubits. G1 reporting in July 2026: assembly target October 2026. That date is a stated schedule, not verified uptime. Scientific lead named: Amir Caldeira (Unicamp).
Eldorado × IQM (17 September 2026): a private institute in Campinas bought an IQM Spark, install targeted Q1 2027, plus remote access to a 54-qubit European system. First IQM system in South America.
Labs
Unicamp — Francisco Rouxinol’s lab, first fully Brazilian transmon; a ~4-qubit chip presented in 2025. The brief called this the only group then focused on developing a quantum chip.
CBPF, Rio — QuantumTec lab; IBM Quantum Network announcement; Rede Rio Quântica node.
Rede Rio Quântica — Antonio Zelaquett Khoury (UFF); UFRJ, PUC-Rio, CBPF, UFF. Fibre and a free-space link across Guanabara Bay. Still a test network, not a telecom product.
“Quantum Blockchain” was not found as a Brazilian company. Quantum Cert and Jamii are marketing-stage PQC projects the brief did not audit; they are not cards. SpinQ units are Chinese teaching hardware.
Argentina
Strong science, weak industry
A scientific peer to Brazil in pockets of physics, and far behind on deployed infrastructure and startups. Chronic underfunding and import friction are the constraints. CNEA’s fluxonium effort is the clearest hardware bet, and it is still R&D — a goal of 4–8 qubits, not a delivered cloud processor.
PIFCyTC funds CNEA lines: FLUXOPRO (fluxonium), an NMR/NV-style platform, and topological-superconductor characterisation.
ICUA (December 2025) coordinates universities. It lists capabilities at CITEDEF (quantum crypto), UBA / UNLP / UNC, INTI (metrology), and CNEA (sensors).
Instituto Balseiro in Bariloche is the training node. UBA, UNSAM, UNC, UNLP, and ITBA have groups.
ARSAT’s CryptoComm is a reported PQC product line, not a confirmed large QKD deployment. INVAP quantum-tech interest is weakly attested; an operational QKD pilot was not confirmed on primary pages in the research pass.
QUBIT.AR and a “Quantum Sudamericana” network appear in soft press and were not verified as a funded network. No directory cards.
Chile
Academic build
Quantü, a neutral-atom project, kicked off on 22 January 2026 at Pontificia Universidad Católica, with Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María. ANID Anillo funding, one of three awards in that call. Leadership: Dardo Goyeneche (director), Jerónimo Maze (experiment), Ariel Norambuena (USM, theory). The three-year horizon is foundations, not a commercial computer. CoreDevX attended the kickoff. No Chilean IBM Quantum Network hub or large startup cohort was verified.
Colombia
Policy + lab seed
MinCiencias has put quantum into the ColombIA Inteligente calls (convocatoria 966), covering information processing, secure communications, and sensing. In June 2025 Minister Yesenia Olaya visited Universidad del Valle, which is building an ion-trap processor at CiBioFi — experimental, not a multi-qubit product. Universidad del Cauca and others run experiments on IBM cloud hardware. Quantum Latino 2026 was planned for Universidad EIA in Envigado. No material product company was verified.
Uruguay
One real company
Quantum-South in Montevideo is the regional bright spot outside Brazil’s cyber niche: cargo optimisation software, IBM and Microsoft quantum-network membership, founded in 2019 from Universidad de Montevideo. There is no large public hardware programme. The company is small and, on the brief’s reading, commercially more mature than most of the continent’s startup experiments.
Quantum Latino 2023 in Lima (PUCP) mattered for the regional community. No national industrial programme, IBM hub, or notable QC company was verified. Peru is a host and a network node, not an industry location.
Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, Bolivia, the Guianas
Negligible industry found
No significant national programme or QC industry turned up in the research pass. Individual researchers using foreign cloud platforms do not make a national industry.