News Brief

The investment round was led by Quantonation with additional participation from Runa Capital and SPInvest. The amount of the investment has not yet been made public. Qu & Co is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands and provides quantum software for chemistry and materials simulation, multi-physics simulation and computational finance. Their lead product, introduced in March is called  QUBEC and is integrated with Schrödinger’s Maestro chemical modelling interface. The company earlier this year announced collaborations to use its quantum software with both Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, and also LG Electronics for applications in drug discovery and multi-physics simulations, respectively. Additional [...]

We reported in April about the University of Maryland's (UMD) establishment of a Quantum Startup Foundry to help incubate quantum technology startups. This week they announced that professional services firm Ernst & Young (EY) has joined as the first founding partner. As part of their activities, EY will support programs that connect the virtual and physical resources needed to support quantum entrepreneurs and startups as well as provide insight, mentorship, customer and investor introductions and other services to companies associated with the Quantum Startup Foundry. Additional information about this is available in a news release published by the University of Maryland [...]

QuSecure, a San Mateo, California company developing what they call Post Quantum Network Orchestration technology has closed on a $1.9 million seed round. Their technology uses Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms but also can orchestrate the communications over existing network infrastructure and includes self-authentication and quantum key striping features. The company has recently joined the Techstars Space Accelerator Class of 2021 and was recently named as one of 28 high-momentum cybersecurity startups on the CB Insights Cyber Defenders 2021 list. QuSecure has a number of Proof-of-Concept (PoC) demonstrations in process including subprime status on a Navy Seaport Project. August 5, 2021

The National University of Singapore (NUS) will collaborate with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to research quantum communication and quantum computing technologies and also to explore potential industry applications of quantum capabilities. The collaboration will be led by Singapore's Quantum Engineering Programme (QEP) which is hosted at NUS. The collaboration will consist of AWS' support for QEP's quantum computing research and projects and will also include an AWS connection to Singapore's National Quantum Safe Network for quantum communications. Additional details can be found in a news release located on the NUS website here. August 2, 2021

Multiverse Computing is a quantum software company with headquarters in headquartered in San Sebastian, Spain and offices in Toronto, Canada and Paris, France. They specialize in providing software and consulting services to financial institutions for problems include portfolio optimization, pricing of derivatives, financial crash forecasting, and tax fraud. They will partner with Strangeworks to gain access to exclusive quantum computing hardware and novel quantum architectures to conduct algorithms research and deliver new insights to its customers. Strangeworks's goal is to humanize quantum computing, cut through the confusion of quantum computing and make it accessible to everyone. As part of this effort [...]

Ohio State will be the Chicago Quantum Exchange's first regional academic partner and the Weizmann Institute of Science will be its first international academic partner. Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, is the lead member institution in the multi-institutional quantum education initiative QuSTEAM, the university is dedicated to preparing a quantum-ready workforce. The Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel, performs research on trapped ion qubits, superconducting qubits, neutral atom simulators and photon-based computation. Its theoretical groups have expertise in topological quantum states of matter and topological quantum computation. A news release from the Chicago Quantum Exchange announcing these new partners is available [...]

The machine has been installed at IBM Research’s Shin-Kawasaki facility is located at NANOBIC, a joint research facility operated by industry, academia and government and hosted by Kawasaki City of Japan. The is the second IBM quantum computer installed outside the United States with the first being installed in Germany last April. It will be managed with the University of Tokyo as part of the Quantum Innovation Initiative Consortium (QIIC) to facilitate collaboration on quantum computing between industry, academia, and government in Japan. Other members of the QIIC include DIC, Hitachi, JSR, Keio University, Mitsubishi Chemical, Mizuho, MUFG, Sony, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust [...]

The award for Super.tech came from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and will cover a nine month period extending from August 1, 2021 to April 30, 2022. The research will cover compilation methods for dense graph optimization problems, mixed binary problems where variables can be either binary or continuous, and constrained optimization applications like maximal independent set. Super.tech is a quantum software startup based in Chicago that came out of the EPiQC collaboration led by the University of Chicago. They were recently named to be one of the six startups to participate as part of the [...]

The awards from the Department of Energy (DOE) will study the materials and chemical processes needed to develop the next generation of quantum smart devices and quantum computing technology. The projects will last up to 3 years and will perform fundamental research to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels. Twenty-two of the awards were made to universities and seven were made to one of the DOE's national laboratories. A news release announcing the awards can be found on the DOE website here and a list of the 29 awards can be found here. [...]