Atom Computing has previewed its next generation neutral atom process that will sport 1180 qubits on a 1225 site (35 x 35) array. The system is currently being tested in Atom’s laboratory in Boulder, Colorado and expected to be made available to clients in 2024. In many respects, the machine is a scale up of their preceding 100 qubit processor, but it does have some key differences. The most significant is that they have changed the atom species used from Strontium to Ytterbium, and the machine is built for uptime. The design is build in modules and offers continuous loading of the atoms in real time if needed.
Atom has designed its own control electronics with FPGAs to provide them with maximum flexibility. It will retain the excellent coherence times of about 40 seconds that they announced in the previous generation machine but also include the capability to perform mid-circuit measurements, a useful feature for experimenting with error correction algorithms. Although they haven’t reached it yet, the company’s goal is to achieve a 2-qubit fidelity of about 99.5% and will provide qubit connectivity to nearest and next nearest neighbors. Unlike other companies working with neutral atoms, the company is concentrating only supporting digital mode and will not support analog mode. The company also indicates that the machine has a smaller footprint for a machine with over 1000 qubits and it also quite power efficient.
Currently, the machine can be programmed using Qiskit and QASM as user interfaces with the potential to support other programming frameworks in the future. The company is working with enterprise, academic, and government users, like Vodafone and Entropica Labs and expect them to start working with the machine in 2024.
Additional information about this announcement is available in a press release provided by Atom Computing that can be accessed here.
October 24, 2023