MINNEAPOLIS – Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum, two big companies in the nascent but potentially revolutionary quantum computing technology, completed merger plans to become a new company called Quantinuum on Tuesday. The new 400-employee company is a bigger competitor to tech giants like Google, IBM, Intel and Microsoft that also hope to cash in on quantum computing.

The two companies each contribute about half of the employees but have different specialties. Quantum computing hardware maker Honeywell Quantum Solutions is a subsidiary of Honeywell, an industrial giant that sold its mainframe business in 1986 but remains active in chemicals, aerospace and building management. Cambridge Quantum, based in the UK, focuses on the software needed to make quantum computers useful and accessible to customers.

Quantinuum’s customers likely won’t include you, at least directly, since quantum computers won’t fit in your watch or laptop. But humming away in data centers, they have the potential to reshape things you do care about, like the efficiency of solar panels, the financial performance of your retirement fund and the development of new medicines.

To read what else this mega merger can do, click on CNET