JPMorgan Chase & Co. today announced plans to invest up to $10 billion in technology and infrastructure companies.

The news sent several quantum computer makers’ shares soaring more than 20%.

JPMorgan will invest mainly in U.S. companies with the goal of supporting their engineering and manufacturing operations. The bank will make the investments as part of a new program, the Security and Resiliency Initiative, through which it plans to support “industries critical to national economic security and resiliency.” In addition to investing its own capital, the bank will provide participating companies with $1.5 trillion worth of financing over 10 years, 50% more than what it had planned to offer before. 

The Security and Resiliency Initiative will focus on 27 different areas that the bank has organized into four categories. The first category, which JPMorgan calls frontier and strategic technologies, includes five technology verticals including quantum computing. Shares of quantum computer developers D-Wave Quantum Inc. and IonQ Inc. rose more than 20% on the news, while Quantum Computing Inc. closed 12% higher.

It’s possible JPMorgan’s interest in the quantum technology market isn’t limited solely to computers. 

The bank listed sensor hardware as a focus of its new investment initiative. Many of the most advanced sensors in development today use quantum mechanical phenomena, such as the behavior of low-temperature atoms, to detect environmental changes. IonQ, one of the quantum computer makers that logged stock price gains today, entered the quantum sensor market earlier this year.

Alongside its frontier and strategic technologies category, JPMorgan plans to invest in three other areas. They include supply chain and advanced manufacturing, defense and aerospace and energy independence and resilience. Those categories also include technology-related subfields.

JPMorgan’s supply chain and advanced manufacturing investment plan, for example, will partly focus on companies developing autonomous mobile robots. The bank will also seek to back chipmaking equipment providers. In the energy sector, battery storage is among the technologies that JPMorgan lists as a priority.

The Wall Street heavyweight will hire bankers, investment professionals and other experts to support its new financing initiative. It will also appoint an external advisory council to help guide the program.

“Our security is predicated on the strength and resiliency of America’s economy,” said JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. “America needs more speed and investment.”

Another major financial institution, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., is also sharpening its focus on the tech sector. The investment bank today announced plans to acquire San Francisco-based venture capital firm Industry Ventures for $665 million in cash and equity. Goldman Sachs will pay an additional $300 million through 2030 if certain performance goals are met.

Industry Ventures has 45 staffers who manage $7 billion worth of assets. The firm has backed Meta Platforms Inc., Uber Technologies Inc. and other major consumer tech firms over the past 25 years. Its portfolio also includes enterprise software companies such as Datadog Inc., a publicly traded observability provider. 

Photo: JPMorgan