Feb 11 (Reuters) - QuEra Computing said on Tuesday the

neutral-atom quantum firm has completed a funding round in

excess of $230 million, with investment from Google's

Quantum AI business unit and SoftBank Vision Fund, among others.

The valuation of the company at which it raised the money

was not disclosed.

Neutral-atom quantum computing makes it easier to scale up

the system and reduces error rates compared to other quantum

systems. It achieves this by using lasers to manage small,

uncharged atoms such as rubidium or strontium.

The Boston-based startup said that $60 million out of the

$230 million will be received in the near future upon satisfying

a prerequisite funding condition, currently in progress.

QuEra expects to use this funding, among other things, in

the development of fault-tolerant quantum computing technology,

which refers to quantum computers that can reliably perform

computations even in the presence of errors.

Google, Microsoft ( MSFT ) and IBM ( IBM ) are leading

supporters of quantum computing among major tech companies, as

they believe it has potential to deliver faster computing speeds

than the most advanced systems available today.

In December, Google said it overcame a key challenge in

quantum computing with a new generation of chips. The company

said last week that commercial quantum computing applications

will be released in the next five years.

Quantum AI startup SandboxAQ raised $300 million in

December, valuing the startup spun off from Alphabet at $5.6

billion.