IonQ has achieved a significant breakthrough in quantum networking with the successful demonstration of remote ion-ion entanglement in a commercial setting. This milestone, announced in September 2024, marks the second of four key advancements in IonQ’s development of photonic interconnects, a core component of the company’s strategy for scaling quantum systems.
Building on the ion-photon entanglement milestone reached in February 2024, this latest achievement involves entangling qubits from separate ion traps using photon-based communication. IonQ’s research team developed a system that collects photons from two separate trap wells and routes them to a central detection hub, creating a quantum link between the traps. This advancement is essential for scaling quantum systems via modular architectures and networking multiple quantum processing units (QPUs) together, which IonQ believes will eventually enable massive quantum computing scale.
In a blog post accompanying the announcement, IonQ detailed its approach to modular quantum architecture, emphasizing the importance of photonic interconnects in its scaling strategy. These interconnects allow qubits to be entangled across individual QPUs, forming larger, more capable quantum systems. The next step on IonQ’s roadmap is to transfer entanglement between ion qubits to computation qubits, paving the way for multi-QPU programmatic entanglement.
IonQ’s President & CEO, Peter Chapman, highlighted the company’s focus on scalability, noting that these advancements will allow customers to tackle increasingly complex problems using quantum computing. With this milestone, IonQ is one step closer to achieving commercially viable quantum networks.
For more information, you can explore the full press release and blog post, which includes a detailed explanation of the technical process and a video of the milestone.
October 4, 2024