Atomionics is a Singapore-based deep technology company building quantum sensors for two applications that have more in common than they first appear: finding what lies beneath the Earth's surface, and navigating without any reliance on satellites. Founded in 2018 by Sahil Tapiawala and Ravi Kumar, the company grew out of research conducted at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and has since raised $14.6 million from a group of investors that includes BHP Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Wavemaker Partners, and SGInnovate.

Resource exploration is, by most measures, still a blunt instrument. The mining industry drills into the wrong place ninety percent of the time. Surveys are slow, costly, and produce data of limited resolution. The metals the world requires for the energy transition, copper, lithium, rare earths, are genuinely difficult to find, and the tools in common use today were not designed with that level of precision in mind. Billions are spent, and much of it is wasted. Atomionics was built around the conviction that quantum physics could change this in a fundamental way, not incrementally, but by a substantial order of magnitude.

The company's core product is Gravio, a portable quantum gravimeter roughly the size of a basketball. It works by cooling atoms to temperatures near absolute zero using lasers, then measuring with extraordinary precision the minute variations in gravitational force those atoms experience. From this, Gravio constructs a detailed picture of what lies underground, identifying density anomalies that indicate the presence of mineral deposits, geological structures, tunnels, or other subsurface features. It is, in effect, a high-resolution X-ray of the Earth, acquired from a moving vehicle without drilling a single hole or disturbing the ground in any way. The raw gravity data is then processed through ORE-O, the company's AI-powered modelling engine, which translates it into three-dimensional geological maps with a specificity that was not previously achievable.

The result is subsurface mapping at speeds up to ten times faster than conventional methods, with a level of accuracy that substantially reduces the number of exploratory drills that prove fruitless.

Gravio has been field-tested across several geologies and geographies, including desert, urban, and remote terrain in Singapore, Australia, and the United States. Atomionics has completed what it describes as the world's largest commercial quantum gravimetry survey in the oil and gas sector. In early 2025, Rio Tinto partnered with the company to trial Gravio in mineral exploration, with tests conducted in Arizona and Australia. BHP Ventures followed with a strategic investment later that year.

The immediate focus is on scaling operations in Australia and North America, with an office being established in the Northern Territory and early deployments already underway. The defence and national security dimension of the technology has also attracted attention, with In-Q-Tel among the investors in the most recent round. Further out, the same sensing capability that maps underground resources has direct applications in GPS-independent navigation, positioning systems that function underwater, underground, and in space, a prospect the founders have described from the beginning as among the most significant long-term possibilities of the platform.

Atomionics is the only company in Singapore, and one of very few in the world, commercialising quantum sensing technology at this level of readiness. It sits at the intersection of the energy transition, critical minerals supply, and deep technology, three areas where the gap between what the world needs and what existing tools can deliver is wide and growing. The technology is, in the clearest sense, ahead of the industry it serves.