Doug Finke

At its recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC25), Apple announced that its next major operating system releases for Mac and Windows,  iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, and visionOS 26, will support negotiation of a quantum-secure key exchange algorithm with TLS 1.3 servers that support it. If a server does not yet support one of the quantum-secure exchange algorithms, the operating system will still maintain compatibility and use other key exchange algorithms. The next major operating system releases are expected to be made during Apple's Fall product announcements expected in September. Apple did incorporate support last year for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) [...]

Conceptual Picture of IBM's Starling, Planned to Be the Company's First Fault Tolerant Quantum Computer. Credit: IBM. IBM had previously indicated its intention to create full fault tolerant quantum computers (FTQC) with an ultimate goal to produce a processor codenamed Blue Jay with 2000 logical qubits and support for processing circuits with 1 billion gates by 2033. Certainly, this roadmap will incorporate things that will provide key technologies needed for meeting the goals of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative that IBM is participating in. But what some people may not realize is that moving from their current NISQ to an FTQC architecture [...]

IonQ has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Oxford Ionics, a UK-based quantum hardware company, in a transaction valued at $1.075 billion, marking a strategic move to accelerate the global race toward fault-tolerant quantum computing. The deal consists of approximately $1.065 billion in IonQ stock and $10 million in cash, and is expected to close later in 2025 pending regulatory approvals. Strategic Fit: Trapped-Ion Synergies and Semiconductor Integration This acquisition merges IonQ’s application and systems expertise in trapped-ion quantum computing with Oxford Ionics’ high-fidelity ion-trap technology, notable for its integration onto conventional semiconductor chips. The companies aim to deliver scalable quantum [...]

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) has published its development roadmap for the next nine years with an end goal of producing a quantum processor, codenamed Atlas with 50,000 logical qubits by 2034, the largest number that anyone else has disclosed to date. Leading up to the Atlas, the company will be developing a series of three additional machines, codenamed Genesis, Titan, and Athena with increasing qubit count and error rate. The company expects that the machine slated for 2028, Titan, will be able to provide users with a commercial advantage over classical alternatives on some applications. A key technology element that they [...]

Many countries are seeking to be amongst the leaders in developing and utilizing quantum technology to benefit the lives of their citizens. And the United Kingdom is no exception. Recently, Labour Tech and the YIMBY Initiative published a report including contributions from 11 quantum experts, including GQI's own Dr. Joe Spencer that outlines an urgent, mission-led strategy to secure the UK’s global leadership in quantum technologies. It emphasizes that quantum computing is no longer speculative science but a geopolitical, economic, and security imperative. The UK, despite its strong academic foundations and early investments, is at risk of becoming a “research lab [...]

We had reported in our story about IonQ's Q1 financial report last month that IonQ announced its intention to acquire LightSynq Technologies. IonQ has now announced they have completed the acquisition and delivered 12,377,433 "Stock Consideration" shares. At the current market price for Ionq as of today of $39.81 this would amount to about $492.7 million, although some of those shares include stock options subject to vesting conditions. Lightsynq is a Boston-based startup that specializes in photonic interconnects and quantum memory used in creating a quantum internet and also for connecting individual quantum processors together to form a larger cluster. As [...]

Students from the CU News Corps at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created a report on quantum technology and how organizations in the state of Colorado are working to make it a reality. The report covers activities and quotes from organizations including Vescent Photonics, Elevate Quantum, Atom Computing, JILA, Colorado School of Mines, and others that help explain the technology and how it will make an impact in the future. To access the report, you can reach it by clicking on the report title The New Frontier of Technology: Quantum Computing. May 31, 2025

By Jordan Makansi Introduction: The Quantum Simulation Milestone In March 2025, D-Wave Quantum announced a breakthrough in quantum computing: a demonstration of quantum computational advantage using their Advantage2 quantum annealer. The company claimed it had successfully simulated the real-time dynamics of large, disordered quantum spin glasses, a task long considered intractable for classical computers. See the earlier QCR article published when D-Wave made their original announcement here.Almost immediately, teams from EPFL and the Flatiron Institute pushed back with a classical simulation that replicated aspects of D-Wave’s result using a variational Monte Carlo method. The rapid rebuttal raised important questions: What exactly [...]