I did quantum computing research in university. We did meaningful work and published meaningful research.

Around 50% of our time was spent working in Overleaf making small improvements to old projects so that we could submit to some new journal or call-for-papers. We were always doing peer review or getting peer reviewed. We were working with a lot of 3rd-party tools (e.g. FPGAs, IBM Q, etc). And our team was constantly churning due to people getting their degrees and leaving, people getting too busy with coursework, and people deciding they just weren't interested anymore.

Compare that to the corporate labs: They have a fully proprietary ecosystem. The people who developed that ecosystem are often the ones doing research on/with it. They aren't taking time off of their ideas to handle peer-review processes. They aren't taking time off to handle unrelated coursework. Their researchers don't graduate and start looking for professor positions at other universities.

It's not surprising in the slightest that the corporate labs do better. They're more focused and better suited for long-term research.