News Brief

The round was led by investors LocalGlobe and Episode 1 with additional participation from previous investors including UCL Technology Fund, Parkwalk Advisors and London Co-investment Fund. This brings total funding for Phasecraft up to £5.5 million ($7.3M USD). Phasecraft is a UK based quantum software company that is developing high-efficiency software for useful applications. Their latest research involves finding a more efficient way of solving the Fermi-Hubbard model and was recently published in Physical Review B, published by the American Physical Society, and was also chosen as an Editors’ Suggestion in Physics magazine. For more, you can view the funding news [...]

The investors in this round include Honeywell Ventures, IBM Ventures, JSR Corporation, Serendipity Capital, Alvarium Investments and Talipot Holdings. The funds will be used to further accelerate commercialization of CQC's quantum computing software and applications. Serendipity Capital had announced last July it had funded CQC for an undisclosed amount and it is not clear if that has been included in the $45 million or was a separate investment of an earlier round. Similarly, IBM had also invested in CQC in February for an undisclosed amount. CQC is a leading quantum software company with over 130 professionals in the UK, US, and [...]

In the race between IBM and others to see who can quote the highest Quantum Volume number, IBM just disclosed that they have now reached a Quantum Volume level of 128 on their IBM Q Montreal quantum computer. This now matches the Quantum Volume of 128 that Honeywell announced at the end of September. It was only last August when IBM announced they had upgraded this same Montreal device to reach a Quantum Volume level of 64 from the previous 32 solely through improved software and qubit controls. Apparently, IBM has continued to improve the software and qubit controls to reach [...]

The pledge was made by Martin Hoeffner, the head of the AMAG Group which is the largest automotive group in Switzerland. The funds will be used to construct a highly specialized physics laboratory building on ETH's Hönggerberg campus. The building will take eight years to build with a scheduled completion in 2028 and will be specially constructed to minimize interference from vibrations, electromagnetic interference, and provide a high degree of temperature stability for sensitive experiments. The building will house over 500 staff members and include special underground research laboratories where it will be possible to conduct particularly sensitive, highly isolated experiments. [...]

The European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant was awarded to a team from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, ETH Zurich, and the University of British Columbia (UBC). The grant will allow the team to develop fundamentally novel thermodynamic measurement methods, in particular for entropy, for investigating new phases of matter, such as Majorana fermions, that emerge in quantum electronic devices. Majorana fermions would be a key component in the topological qubit technology being pursued by Microsoft and others. Additional details about this project can be found on the Ben-Gurion University website here. November 28, 2020

We first reported about Quantum Inspire in April 2020 as the first quantum cloud computing systems in Europe. Now the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has provided the consortium with a 4.5 Million euro grant to further develop the system. The consortium consists of TU Delft, Leiden University, Radboud University, HAS University of Applied Sciences, QuTech, TNO, Waag, Ministry of Defence, Malmberg, Zurich Instruments, Onderwijsnetwerk Zuid-Holland (ONZ), Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching and the system itself is physically located at QuTech in Delft, Netherlands. The funds will be used to develop systems with 50 qubits or more, design an intuitive and [...]

Unitary Fund, a non-profit that provides $4000 grants to projects that help develop the quantum technology ecosystem has added another benefit for those who receive awards. Awardees will now be able to enjoy increased access to the IBM Q infrastructure to perform their research. The increased access will include: A larger share of the queue on open IBM Quantum systems.Access to additional, non-open systems. These systems are more advanced than the open systems and generally have more qubits and better gate fidelities. The ability to book dedicated time on a system Many of the awardees are individuals, students or others who may not [...]

The financing includes £12.5 million ($16.7M USD) in equity from the newly formed Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and £20 million ($26.8M USD) in debt financing from the finance firm Santander UK. The funds will be used to advance the company’s R&D as well as refinance some existing debt and complete a strategic buyout of part of an existing equity investment from the U.K. investor group Business Growth Fund (BGF). We had previously reported that M Squared is leading the UK’s £10 million ($13.1M USD) DISCOVERY project with eight additional partners to research the use of photonics in quantum computing. More [...]

Quantillion can be used to model quantum optical devices and saves time and money because engineers will not have to go through multiple prototypes to optimize their design. Quantopticon indicates that the software provides many more features than both classical modelling software and open-source quantum optics toolboxes. You can view a product brochure here and also download a demo of the software here. November 18, 2020

After going through a competitive bidding process, the Government of Finland has selected IQM to build its first quantum computer.  IQM will be working with VTT, a state-owned non-profit corporation on this project and the project will have a budget of €20.7 million (about $24.5 Million USD). The ultimate goal of the project will be to have a 50 qubit device by 2024.  But there will be interim steps with an initial goal of having a 5 qubit device within the next 12 months.  IQM was founded as a spinoff from a research group at Aalto University.  The company is developing [...]