News Brief

The Quantum Algorithms Institute has been recently established on the Surrey campus of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada to bring industry, academia, and government together to accelerate the innovation and commercialization of quantum technologies. These funds were provided by Western Economic Diversification Canada to harness British Columbia’s growing global reputation as a leader in quantum computing. The institute will use the funds to create a state-of-the-art physical hub to facilitate engagement activities such as hosting collaborative events between local and international players from industry and academia, promote collaboration between existing quantum companies and potential new customers and help the [...]

The problem with many quantum programs right now is that the programs require more qubits than are available in the current hardware. To help improve upon the situation, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Xanadu with a grant to develop a compiler that can cut up the program and run it in pieces on smaller quantum hardware or classical simulators that are limited in the number of qubits they can simulate. The compiler will attempt to automatically break down a circuit into a multi-circuit hybrid model and leverage both classical and quantum computing resources for execution. There [...]

The European Commission's Horizon Europe and Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) are partnering to issue a call for joint EU-CAN proposals for research on quantum technologies. Each one will provide funding of up to €4 Million (about $6M CAD or $4.7M USD) for projects related to quantum communication, quantum computing, quantum simulation or quantum sensing. The expected award to each selected EU-Canada consortium is about €1.33 Million (about $2M CAD or $1.57M USD) for projects expect to range from 36 to 60 months in duration. The EC will pay their funds to the European participants and the [...]

We reported in May on an initiative from Dutch-based Quantum Delta NL called Lightspeed to support Dutch based quantum startup with raising capital from potential investors in Europe and the United States. They have now added on to this effort by creating their own micro-fund called "Lightspeed Fund 1" which will provide pre-seed funding to startups of up to 50,000 euros ($59K USD) in the form of a SAFE note (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) to allow early stage quantum startups to get started. Quantum Delta NL intends to make 5 to 15 awards in fiscal year 2021/2022 and 35 to 40 awards [...]

The three companies have been provided a grant from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to research possible applications of quantum computing in drug discovery. Riverlane will lead the 18 month program which will develop an integrated application for simulating molecular systems using Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services. As part of the research, the team will also develop error mitigation software to help optimize the performance of the hardware architecture to improve both error rates and run times. A paper that can provide some background into Riverlane's approach can be found here. Drug discovery remains one of the highest potential applications for quantum computing [...]

Oxford Quantum Circuits is setting up the first Quantum Computing-as-a-Service (QCaaS) in the United Kingdom. They will create a private cloud for strategic partners and customers who want to experiment with their quantum computer. The initial offering will be using their Sophia quantum computer which has four qubits, but OQC is working on more advanced machines which we expect to be also available on their service in the not too distant future. In addition, clients of the service will also be able to access Cambridge Quantum Computing's Ironbridge quantum random number generation which produces verifiable quantum randomness for cybersecurity applications. The [...]

The funds are being provided by the Australia Department of Defence’s Next Generation Technologies Fund (NGTF) which will provide $2 million AUS each to Griffith University, the University of Technology Sydney, and the University of New South Wales. The funding will occur over a two years period and will expand the work that has been performed under the Australia—US Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (AUSMURI) program to enable error-tolerant quantum computers. The title of the project is "Quantum Control Based on Real-Time Environment Analysis by Spectator Qubits" with a goal to assess and experimentally implement a novel paradigm using spectator quantum systems for [...]

The Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology will fund Q-CTRL with $4.5 million AUS over a 2.5 year period  to expand the manufacture of novel remote sensing payloads for space deployment. The funding will come from the Australian government's  Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI). Q-CTRL has been expanding its potential market by pursuing sensing applications that can use its BOULDER OPAL quantum control software and other Q-CTRL technology. These applications including quantum gravimetry, quantum magnetometry, quantum enhanced position, navigation and timing (PNT), and ultra-stable quantum clocks. Earlier this year, Q-CTRL announced it will be collaborating with the Australian SEVEN SISTERS consortium to [...]

Rohde & Schwarz is an electronics company headquartered in Munich, Germany with products for the electronic test equipment, broadcast & media, cybersecurity, radio monitoring and radiolocation, and radiocommunication markets. For their fiscal 2019/2020 year they achieved revenue of €2.58 Billion  ($3.06 Billion USD) and have over 12,000 employees in over 70 countries. Zurich Instruments was founded in 2008 , has over 100 employees and is based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company's initial products were aimed for the lock-in amplifier market, but recently the company has expanded its product offerings to include electronic instrumentation for quantum computers. In March of this year, the company announced a [...]

A new Center for Quantum Technologies is being established in Indiana with Purdue University as the lead institution and additional members including Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Notre Dame, and Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI). It is being established through the NSF’s Industry-University Cooperative Research program which has provided a $20,000 grant to get the center started. Purdue already has the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, which has over 50 scientists and engineers and the Center for Quantum Technologies will leverage this resource. Besides researching and developing industry-friendly quantum devices, systems, and algorithms, the center will have a mission of helping to train [...]