Commercial quantum hardware developer Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) and global energy technology firm Schneider Electric have advanced to Stage 2 of the Australian Government’s Critical Technologies Challenge Program (CTCP). The joint team secured A$3.6 million (US$2.5 million) in funding to deploy hybrid quantum-classical machine learning models across distributed energy resource (DER) networks in partnership with UNSW Sydney.
The collaboration utilizes SQC’s Watermelon™ system, an atomically engineered quantum feature generator designed to accelerate classical machine learning workflows. During Stage 1 evaluations, SQC and Schneider Electric integrated quantum-generated features alongside classical datasets to simulate next-day energy forecasting over a 12-month period. The hybrid models achieved an average 20% improvement in forecasting accuracy relative to standard classical benchmarks, with peak accuracy gains reaching up to 41%.
| [ SQMS / Schneider Electric CTCP Stage 2 Technical Parameters & Performance ] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Technical Metric / Resource | Operational Value & Performance Benchmark | Engineering Impact & Grid Scope |
| • Forecasting Accuracy Boost | • Average 20% improvement in accuracy • Peak accuracy gains up to 41% | • Outperforms classical time-series baselines for next-day DER forecasting |
| • CTCP Stage 2 Grant Funding | • A$3.6 Million (US$2.5 Million) • Awarded by Australian Government CTCP | • Expands live field testing across hundreds of Australian residential grid sites |
| • Quantum Processing Unit | • SQC Watermelon™ quantum feature generator • Atomic-precision phosphorus-in-silicon QPU | • Generates quantum-enhanced features for direct ingestion into Schneider Electric AI workflows |
| • Commercial Integration Scope | • Integration with Schneider Electric DER software • Turnkey cloud and on-premises data center QPU options | • Optimizes rooftop solar, home battery storage, and EV load-balancing switching |
Building on these results, Stage 2 will scale the deployment across hundreds of residential locations across Australia, directly embedding quantum feature generation into Schneider Electric’s production AI pipelines. SQC manufactures its quantum processors using atomic-scale precision in silicon, enabling fast weekly iteration cycles for hardware platforms spanning quantum machine learning (Watermelon™), analog materials simulation (Quantum Twins™), and gate-based quantum processors (Chilli Series).
Review the official press release via PR Newswire here and read our previous coverage on Australia’s NRFC $40M AUD investment in Silicon Quantum Computing here.
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