Recent news items published within the last 6 months on quantum computing developments are listed below. Click on the hyperlinked item to go to the press release or news article for more details. For older news items published in 2021 click here, for 2020 click here, for 2019 click here, for 2018 click here, and for items published in 2015-2017, click here.
March 21, 2023 – News Brief
Strangeworks Closes $24 Million in Series A Funding
Strangeworks has received $24 million in a Series A investment round led by Hitachi Ventures, with additional investors IBM, and Raytheon Technologies (RTX Ventures) and follow-on investments from seed investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Great Point Ventures, and Ecliptic Capital. The company will be using the funds to expand its employee base as well as expanding their product efforts to additional areas including quantum-inspired, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence. Strangeworks has formed a syndicate of over 40 companies that they partner with to provide access to a large number of quantum, quantum-inspired, and software providers. They also provide a number of managed applications of their own and other sources. Their platform allows users to access resources, integrate workflows, measure results, and control quantum resources, spend, usage, and teams. Their goal is to removes the barriers to quantum with the most complete quantum ecosystem available, so that their customers can turn what if into what is. Additional information is available in a press release posted on their website here.
March 21, 2023
NVIDIA Partners with Quantum Machines to Provide a High Performance Classical/Quantum Hybrid Architecture
NVIDIA and Quantum Machines have introduced a new system called DGX Quantum that combines technologies from both companies for providing programming and control of a quantum processor. The Quantum Machines portion is the OPX+ Quantum Control Platform which provide the waveforms for controlling the qubits with the low level waveforms and measurement to operate the qubits. The NVIDIA portion will include a new Grace Hopper Superchip that couples a very high performance GPU (Hopper) with a very high performance CPU (Grace) on the same module. The system is expandable and multiple Grace Hopper Superchips can be connected to the OPX+ through the PCI bus. This module is connected by a very high speed PCI bus to the Quantum Machines OPX+ that can provide real time latencies of a few hundred nanoseconds. The system can be controlled with NVIDIA’s CUDA Quantum programming model, formerly called QODA which was introduced last year. Click here for more.
March 20, 2023 – News Brief
D-Wave Introduces a New Hybrid Solver Plug-in to Provide Feature Selection for Machine Learning Applications
The new plug-in for D-Wave’s Ocean™ SDK provides functionality to perform feature selection for machine learning (ML) workflows. It integrates with scikit-learn, a Python library that features various classification, regression and clustering algorithms. Feature selection is a process of determining the most important features of a model for use in model training and overall performance. AI applications are providing increasing value to businesses and D-Wave’s goal is to make the use of AI with their Leap hybrid cloud service easier and faster for end users. Additional information about this plug-in can be found in a news release announcing its introduction here and readers can access the code for the plug-in on a GitHub site here.
March 17, 2023 – News Brief
QC Ware and Roche Team Up to Use Quantum ML for Image Analysis to Detect Diabetic Retinopathy
QC Ware worked with the Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) group to use a quantum neural network architecture to scan retinal images to detect and diagnose the stage of diabetic retinopathy. The study was performed with up to six qubits on an IBM 27-qubit quantum processor along with classical simulations of the algorithms that used up to 100 qubits. The study indicated that the quantum algorithms would perform better than their classical counterparts because they required smaller models, were easier to train, and less resource intensive. Part of the advantage stems from the nature of the quantum algorithm which could analyze a data element from a more global context rather than a classical neural network which might focus only on its more local context. For additional details about this study, you can view a news release provided by QC Ware here and also the technical paper posted on arXiv here.
March 16, 2023 – News Brief
OVHCloud Purchases a Photonics Quantum Processor from Quandela
We had previously reported in June 2022, that OVHCloud, a leading European cloud provider, was partnering with Quandela to make available to its customers access to Quandela’s photonic quantum computer emulator called Percival. This would allow OVHCloud’s customer to start developing and subsequently emulate quantum programs that could eventually run on a future Quandela photonic quantum computer. OVHCloud has now gone to the next step and purchased a Quandela Mosaic processor so that customers can try out their programs on real hardware. The Mosaic is a modular and upgradeable platform which combines Quandela’s eDelight sources with active demultiplexing from their DMX modules to create an integrated circuits photonic processor that is fully reconfigurable and operates at room temperature. The Mosaic is upgradable and can support anywhere from 2 to 12 photonic qubits. The initial version being installed at OVHCloud will have 2 qubits, but is upgradable to higher capacities depending upon customer demand. For additional information, you can view a news release from OVHCloud announcing this purchase here.
March 16, 2023 – News Brief
MathWorks Introduces a MATLAB Support Package for Quantum Computing that Can Run Circuits on Amazon Braket
The MATLAB Support Package for Quantum Computing allows users to build, simulate, and run quantum algorithms for prototyping quantum programs. It will allow a user to input a quantum program and then do a local simulation to display the results and includes additional capabilities to plot a histogram, display state formulas, and query possible states. A key feature is that it will also allow a user to run their quantum circuit on one of the several quantum processors or high performance quantum simulators that are available on Amazon Braket for those who have an AWS account with access to Amazon Braket. For more information about this new package, you can view a web page for it here and also a page with instructions on how to set it up and use it here.
March 16, 2023
SEEQC Developing a Quantum Chip with a New Approach for the Control Electronics
SEEQC has developed a prototype quantum processor called the SEEQC System Red that is based upon superconducting qubits along with a cryogenic control chip based on SFQ (Single Flux Quantum) logic that is placed on the same multi-chip module as the superconducting qubit chip. This approach can potentially help solve two significant mechanical engineering issues, cable routing and excess heat generation, that make it challenge to scale up a processor to a large number of qubits. Click here for our full article covering this development.
March 15, 2023
UK National Quantum Technologies Program Unveiled with £2.5 Billion ($3M USD) in Funding
The UK National Quantum Technologies Programme has been a globally pioneering initiative in the quantum sector due to its scope and explicit focus on translating research into commercial applications. It has influenced many subsequent initiatives around the globe. As we approach the 10th anniversary of its conception, the UK’s push for science and innovation driven success is entering a new phase. The UK government has announced plans to spend £2.5B over a 10 year continuation of its quantum programme. In an increasingly geopolitical arena, GQI feels the UK is an attractive quantum partner and investment destination. GQI will have a detailed report of the UK quantum program available later this week. Click here for an Executive Summary of this report along with details on how you can obtain the full 38 page report.
March 14, 2023 – News Brief
Cisco Systems to Open a Quantum Research Lab in Santa Monica, California
The new Cisco Quantum Lab, part of the Cisco Research group will research in quantum technologies, optics, and photonics as part of their Emerging Tech and Incubation (ET&I) initiatives. The researchers at this facility will collaborate with universities on joint quantum research projects and also collaborate with Cisco’s business units as various projects move from a research to a product development and commercialization phase. Cisco’s announcement of the opening of this new quantum research lab can be accessed here on the Cisco website.
March 14, 2023 – News Brief
Oxford Quantum Circuits to Partner with Equinox Inc. and Install a Machine at an Equinox Data Center in Tokyo
Equinox Inc., is a leading internet connection and data center company headquartered in Redwood City, California with 2022 revenue of over $7 billion and over 12,000 employees. Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) develops superconducting based quantum processors that provides Quantum Computing as a Service (QCaaS) through their own private cloud, Amazon Web Services, and data centers such as one from Cyxtera. The companies will be partnering to install one of OQC’s processors at Equinix’s TY11 Tokyo International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center to provide worldwide access to Equinox’s customers via their Equinix Fabric® interconnection solution. The companies expect to complete the installation in late 2023. More information about this new partnership can be seen in a press release provided by Equinox available here.
March 14, 2023
SemiQon to Develop Affordable and Scalable Quantum Computers
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland just launched quantum computing spinout SemiQon with a mission to power the scale up of quantum computers with silicon-based quantum processors. This new quantum processor chip is made from silicon semiconductors versus a variety of non-standard materials. In this case, the use of easy-to-replicate silicon quantum dot-based technology provide both scalability and manufacturability, while functioning at warmer temperatures for greater operability and sustainability. According to SemiQon, this capability could enable quantum processors requiring millions of qubits for fault-tolerant operation. Click here for more.
March 11, 2023 – News Brief
AWS Tests Out Its First QKD Secured Network in Singapore
We reported in June of last year that Amazon Web Services (AWS) had created a fourth initiative related to quantum technology for research into quantum networks. They have completed their first demonstration which implemented a communications network secured by QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) keys between the Centre for Quantum Technologies and Horizon Quantum Computing that implements a VPN tunnel between the two locations. The communication used standard telecom fiber optic cable with a length of 16 kilometers (about 9.9 miles). In the diagram above, the yellow portions shows the quantum devices used to exchange the encryption keys which are then used for the encrypted message transmissions using a classical network shown in pink. The white boxes in the middle are Fortinet Firewall devices which help management the network and the areas in blue are the two computer hosts which the network ties together. Additional information about this test can be found in a blog posting on the AWS website here as well as a technical talk made at Q2B last December by Joe Fitzsimmons, CEO of Horizon Quantum Computing.
March 11, 2023 – News Brief
QUADRATURE Consortium Receives €4 Million ($4.2M USD) from the European Innovation Council to Research Distributed Quantum Cores
The QUADRATURE consortium is comprised of Equal1, Barcelona Supercomputer Center, Delft University of Technology, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Technical University of Catalunya, Technical University of Valencia (project coordinator), University College Dublin, University of Catania, and University of Siegen. They will research how to develop a massively scalable quantum computer by connecting multiple individual quantum processor through coherent quantum communication links. The funding will be provided by the European Innovation Council (EIC) through their EIC Pathfinder program. Additional information about this program is available in a press release provided by Equal1 located here.
March 9, 2023
Microsoft Introduces Integrated Hybrid Processing Feature for the Quantinuum Processor
It is well understood in the quantum industry that successful quantum programs will require the integration of classical and quantum processors. But there are different architectures on how this can be implemented. Microsoft has introduced a new feature in their Azure Quantum service called Integrated Hybrid Quantum Architecture that can take advantage of the mid-circuit measurement feature available on the Quantinuum family of processors. Click here for our full article that explains this feature and its benefits.
March 9, 2023 – News Brief
QuantWare Raises €6 Million ($6.3M USD) in Seed Funding
QuantWare, a Dutch provider of superconducting quantum processor chips, has received €6 million in seed funding in a round led by led by Forward.One with additional participation from the QDNL Participations Fund and Graduate Entrepreneur. The company, whose goal is to become the “Intel of quantum computing”, sells standalone quantum processor chips for organizations that want to build up their own quantum computer and achieve an acquisition cost which the company claims will be 1/10th of the price of buying a full quantum computer from one of the suppliers. They recently announced a 64 qubit QPU called Tenor. (See the QCR report on it here.) This new chip uses a QuantWare’s patented 3D architecture which may make it easier to scale future products to higher capacities. The company was also selected to provide processor chips for Israel’s first fully functional quantum computer. Additional information is available in a news release posted on the QuantWare website which can be accessed here.
March 8, 2023 – News Brief
Fujitsu Announces a $100,000 Quantum Simulator Challenge
Fujitsu has developed 39-qubit CPU-based state vector quantum simulator system consisting of 512 FX700 nodes with by using A64FX processors. The quantum simulator utilizes an enhanced version of “Qulacs,” one of the world’s fastest quantum simulator software developed by Osaka University and QunaSys Corporation. They have also prepared a software development kit (SDK) partially compatible with Qiskit, one of the major development tools for quantum computer software. Fujitsu is seeking users to utilize the simulator and provide them with feedback on performance and stability for real world applications. Prospective Participants must be a legal entity, such as a company or an institution and need to apply to become a Participant in this challenge. Participants will be selected based upon elected problem innovation, breadth of applicability and resulting customer impact. The challenge will run through June 30, 2023 and at its conclusion Fujitsu will award $50,000 for the first place entry, $30,000 for second place, and $20,000 for third place. For more information about this challenge and to learn how to apply to become a Participant, you can visit the web page for this Quantum Simulator Challenge here.
March 8, 2023 – News Brief
PsiQuantum Receives £9 Million ($10.6M USD) in Funding to Open an R&D Facility in the UK for Developing Advanced Cryogenic Technology
PsiQuantum has received a £9 million grant from the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to set up a research group at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory to develop more advanced cryogenics that will increase PsiQuantum’s the cooling capability by a factor of 100. One of the benefits of this location is that it gives PsiQuantum access to one of Europe’s largest liquid-helium (approx. -270°C) cryogenic plants. Although much of PsiQuantum’s system may not require cooling, they do require it for their ultra-sensitive single photon detectors. The cooling apparatus will be using liquid helium which runs at a few degrees kelvin. While cold, it is not as cold as the millikelvin temperatures required for superconducting processors and the cooling apparatus will be much lower in cost than the dilution refrigerators that superconductors use. Additional information about PsiQuantum’s new research effort is available in a news release here.
March 8, 2023
U.S. Department of Energy Requesting Proposals for a $12 Million Quantum Testbed Pathfinder Program
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement for a Quantum Testbed Pathfinder program to fund research groups that will perform basic research investigations to improve understanding of whether, when, and how quantum computing might advance the frontiers of computational science. They will be funding multiple projects in this regard that are expected to be performed over a four year period. Click here for our full article that describes this funding opportunity in more detail.
March 3, 2023 – News Brief
Quantum Delta NL Creates a €15 Million ($15.9M USD) Quantum Investment Fund for Startups Based in The Netherlands
As part of its efforts to create a thriving quantum industry in The Netherlands, Quantum Delta NL has create a new fund called the QDNL Participation Fund. Its goal will be to provide early funding to companies working to commercialize quantum research at Dutch universities including TU Delft; Eindhoven University of Technology; Leiden University; the University of Twente, and the University of Amsterdam. A typical investment for a new startup would be about €1.5 million. In addition, funding in the form of a convertible SAFE note of €50,000 will be available to research teams even before they have incorporated to get them going. Quantum Delta NL also offers a free service called Infinity that will advise university researchers on the process of spinning-out from the university and how to raise an initial seed funding round. For additional information, you can view a news release from Quantum Delta NL announcing the program here and also a website for the QDNL Partipation Fund with additional details about the program here.
March 2, 2023 – News Brief
UIUC, UT Austin, and Rutgers University Win a $5.8 Million Grant to Research Fluxonium Qubits and Modular Quantum Processor Architectures
The award was provided by the Army Research Office, a directorate of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory. The research will cover a four year period at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Rutgers University, and the University of Texas at Austin. The superconductor based fluxonium qubit is a newer approach than the superconductor based transmon qubit which combines features of flux and charge qubit circuits. Part of the research will look at how this qubit type along with multimode cavities can be optimized to achieve much higher coherence times and performance than the current transmons. The other part of this research will investigate how multiple multimode cavities connected by entangled fluxonium qubits can create a modular design that could potentially be scaled up rapidly to provide a large number of high quality qubits. Additional information about this award can be seen in a news release located here.
March 2, 2023
Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, IQM and GMV Will Partner to Install a Quantum Computer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre
Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, IQM, and GMV are partnering to install two quantum processors at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) that will be integrated with the upcoming MareNostrum 5 supercomputer, slated one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The timeline is to finish the installation of MareNostrum 5 by July of this year and install the infrastructure of the quantum process in Q3 of this year with completion by the end of the year. Click here for more about this project.
March 2, 2023
Who’s News: Management Updates at Infleqtion, Quantum Motion, Quantum Brilliance, QuSecure, planqc, and Quantum Exponential
Infleqtion has added a new President of Infleqtion Australia. Quantum Motion has added a VP of Product. Quantum Brilliance has a new Chief Revenue Officer, QuSecure and planqc have recruited an additional member of the respective Board of Directors, and Quantum Exponential has hired a Chief Operating and Strategy Officer. Click here for details on the additions to these companies’ management teams.
March 2, 2023
Quantum Brilliance Releases a Beta Version of Their Own Quantum SDK and Quantum Emulator
Quantum Brilliance has a slightly different vision of how quantum computers can be configure than other companies. They see the devices they are building as quantum accelerators that will be deeply integrated within an HPC data center rather than as standalone quantum mainframes. For this reason, they have developed their own software development kit called the Qristal SDK and a high performance emulator called Qristal Emulator. Click here for more information about these new software tools.
March 1, 2023
Q-CTRL Releases a New Version of Boulder Opal with More AI and Better Performance
Q-CTRL has released of the new version of the Boulder Opal quantum hardware optimization software to use more AI that can provide improved performance and automate more tasks. Click here for a full article that describes some of the key features in this new release.
February 28, 2023
Intel Releases Version 1.0 of their Quantum SDK
Last September we reported on Intel’s beta version release of a Quantum SDK for developing and simulating quantum programs. Now, they have released a version 1.0 of this software with some new features. Click here for our article that describes some of the new features in this release.
February 28, 2023 – News Brief
Aliro Quantum Chosen as the Controller for the EPB Quantum Network
We reported last December on how utility company EPB was setting up a commercial quantum network in the Chattanooga, Tennessee metropolitan area using quantum communication equipment provided by Qubitekk and others. The EPQ Quantum Network will be made available to government, industrial, academia, and others who wish to experiment with utilizing quantum communications for various applications. EPB has now chosen Aliro Quantum’s AliroNet™ software to provide the quantum network control capabilities. The software provides a network operator’s interface, to allow EPB operators to manage and monitor the physical quantum network infrastructure and enable end-users to define, validate, schedule, run and control EPB Quantum Network services. The software will also will be responsible for managing and scheduling access to the pooled quantum hardware resources, routing traffic across the quantum network, and executing the end-user service workflows. For more, you can view a press release that announces Aliro Quantum’s selection for this project here.
February 25, 2023 – News Brief
PASQAL Introduces a New Emulator to Simulate Neutral Atom Quantum Processors
The new emulator from PASQAL, called EMU-TN, that has been integrated into the PASQAL Cloud Service that will mimic the function of the PASQAL QPUs and allow for the estimation of resources needed for a particular algorithm. This emulator uses a simulation technique called Tensor Network simulation which can provide more efficient and larger simulation capabilities for certain simulations than the more common State Vector approach. The simulator can also simulate a PASQAL processor running in an analog mode which is a mode that isn’t supported by many other quantum processors which only support digital mode. This provides some interesting capability such as dynamically placing the qubits in a unique topology optimized for the particular problem rather than a fixed 2D grid or other fixed configuration. The simulator can also simulate the affects of noise in a processor so a user can take that into account. For more information about this new emulator, you can read a blog posting describing it here and also look at a technical pre-print paper that describes it here.
February 24, 2023 – News Brief
QuantLR Introduces Its LoQomo 1 QKD Product for Quantum Cybersecurity
The LoQomo 1 product is a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) solution intended for telecom operators, data center service providers, critical infrastructure facilities, and government institutions. QKD used the laws to quantum physics to send unbreakable messages that are provably unbreakable. Israeli-based QuantLR believes that ultimately, this will be the only means to ensure secure encryption key distribution because the classical software based PQC approaches cannot be proven to be completely secure and might eventually be broken in the future. A key strategy for the company is to provide the most cost-effective QKD solution amongst all the other choices in the market. For additional information about LoQomo 1, you can access a press releasing announcing the launch of the product here.
February 24, 2023
planqc Receives a Seven Figure Euro Investment from European Deep Tech Fund Amadeus Apex
Amadeus Apex was very recently formed by two venture capital firms, Amadeus Capital Partners and Apex Venture, specifically targeting early-stage start-ups in the deep-tech space. They have made a seven figure investment in planqc as one of their initial investments bringing planqc’s total funding to about €6 million ($6.3M USD) so far. The company had previous had a funding round of €4.6 Million ($4.82M USD) in June of 2022. In addition, Dr. Hermann Hauser, a co-founder and venture partner of Amadeus Capital has been added to planqc’s Board of Directors. Dr. Hauser has a long and successful track record in helping to set up and invest in deep tech startups including Acorn Computers and Arm, among others. Planqc is a company located in what is called the Munich Quantum Valley and was formed as a spin-out from the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics and Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. They are developing a quantum processor based upon neutral strontium atom technology. Additional information can be found in an announcement posted on the planqc website here.
February 24, 2023 – News Brief
QuantWare Introduces a 64 Qubit Superconducting Quantum Processor Chip
QuantWare is a supplier of components for those organizations that want to build up their own quantum processors. Their goal is to become the “Intel of Quantum Computing” and their customer base currently includes government labs, universities and others. The company indicates that customers who can build up a quantum processor using QuantWare’s technology and other purchased components can do so at one-tenth the cost of purchasing a complete system from a vendor. Their latest announcement is a 64 qubit superconducting chip call Tenor. To handle all the signal wires that would be needed to control these qubits, QuantWare has moved to a 3D fabrication technology that routes the signal wires vertically. Additional information about this chip can be found in a news announcement that you can access here. There is also a web page for the device which you can see here and a short video here.
February 23, 2023
Quantinuum Sets a New Record for Quantum Volume
Quantinuum has increased their previous Quantum Volume (QV) record of 8,192 by a factor of 4 and now has demonstrated a QV of 32,768 (215) on their H1-1 ion trap quantum processor. This would represent a quantum circuit of 15 qubits with a gate depth of 15. The QV measure was developed by IBM to come up with a quantum processor metric that combines not only qubit count, but also qubit quality and other factors. Although it is not the only metric out that has been proposed to measure the goodness of a processor, it is thoroughly specific and would be hard to game by creating special software or hardware specifically to look good on this metric. Click here for the rest of the article.
February 23, 2023 – News Brief
European Commission Grants €5.6 Million ($5.95M USD) to the QTIndu Project for Quantum Workforce Training
The project will be coordinated by QURECA SPAIN SL and will also include ten other academic, government, professional network, and industrial partners. In addition, two industrial consortia, the Quantum Valley Lower Saxony, and QuiC, the European Quantum Industry Consortium, will serve as advisors to the QTIndu project. The program will have the objectives of developing a nucleus of an end-to-end short-term training program in quantum technology for enterprises, developing tailored training programs specifically to the needs of companies in different business sectors, and providing a roadmap for scaling this to a wider scale in Europe. The Quantum Flagship program has developed a Quantum Technology Competence Framework and the QTIndu project will be aligned to this framework. The project also will be consistent with other initiatives of the Quantum Flagship including the QUCATS (Quantum Flagship’s Coordination and Support Action) and DigiQ (Digitally Enhanced Quantum Technology Master) efforts. Additional information about this project can be found in a news release posted on the Quantum Flagship website here.
February 21, 2023
Quantum Motion Receives £42 million ($50.5M USD) in Venture Funding for Continued Development of Their Spin Qubit Based Processors
The round was led by Bosch Ventures (RBVC) with additional participation from Porsche Automobil Holding SE (Porsche SE), British Patient Capital and existing investors from earlier rounds Oxford Science Enterprises, Inkef, Parkwalk Advisors, Octopus Ventures, IP Group and NSSIF. This investment is the largest single investment for a quantum company in the UK that we are aware of and brings the total amount invested in the company so far to around £62 ($75M USD). Click here for our full article about this new funding.
February 18, 2023 – News Brief
United States and The Netherlands Sign Joint Statement of Cooperation on Quantum Information Science and Technology
The statement of cooperation on quantum is similar to other agreements the United States has signed with the United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and France. The cooperation will include collaborating in venues including workshops, seminars & conferences, sharing research methodologies, infrastructure & data, collaboration amongst various institutions, building a global market & supply chain, workforce development & personnel exchange, pursuing ways to address relevant regulatory, standardization, & certifications, and promoting democratic values & equal opportunity. Both countries participate in the Entanglement Exchange program which helps to facilities exchanges of researchers, students, and professionals in the quantum field. A news release announcing the signing of the statement can be seen here and the statement itself is available here.
February 17, 2023
Toshiba’s SQBM+ Quantum-Inspired Optimizer is Now Available on AWS
A significant amount of the potential use cases for quantum computing lies in the area of optimization. And people are working on a large number of different technologies including pure quantum, hybrid quantum/classical, and quantum-inspired approaches to provide solutions to these problems. (You can obtain GQI’s recent report on Quantum Solver – Optimization to see a review of many of the different solutions currently available.) Toshiba has been working on a solution called SQBM+ which uses a classical software algorithm known as the Simulated Bifurcation Machine (SBM) developed by Toshiba to implement a solver for quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problems based on the Ising model. In June 2022, Toshiba made the SQBM+ available on Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Platform and now they have also made it available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace. Click here for more information about SQBM+ including some of its key features and availability.
February 16, 2023
D-Wave Adds Feature Enhancements, Access in Israel, and $20 Million Dollars
D-Wave made several announcements pertaining to its services and financial position. These including a new feature selection offering for training machine learning models, making access available to its Leap Cloud Service in Israel, work with external auditors to achieve SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, and $20 million in additional funding via a previously established Equity Line of Credit (ELOC). Click here for our full article describing these announcements in greater detail.
February 15, 2023 – News Brief
Quantum Machines Introduces New Chip Carrier Package for Superconducting Quantum Processor Chips
Quantum Machines, an Israeli based provider of quantum control hardware and software, acquired Denmark based Qdevil last year. Qdevil develops and manufactures auxiliary electronics and specialized components for quantum processors. They have announced a new product from the Qdevil subsidiary which is a chip carrier called QCage.64 designed to provide a high amount of isolation from the external environment, yet good connectivity for control lines for superconducting processor chips. The aim is to help the chip minimize losses and maintain a longer coherence time because of the improved isolation. The carrier has a low-loss PCB with 64 embedded coplanar transmission lines and can handle superconducting chips with up to 30 qubits and also provides enclosure of the chip with EMC tight superconducting shielding with a flux biasing magnet inside the shielding. Additional information about this new product is available in a blog posting on the Quantum Machines website here and a product page for the QCage.64 carrier here.
February 15, 2023 – News Brief
memQ Receives Seed Funding of $2 Million
memQ has received seed funding from the lead investor Quantonation, Exposition Ventures, and the George Schultz Innovation Fund to develop of an on-chip quantum repeater built on the company’s solid-state platform for the quantum internet. A repeater is needed to send a quantum photon over a long distance over fiber optic cable and a key component for a quantum repeater is a quantum memory which can store a qubit’s state for an extended period of time. memQ is using a rare earth based (Erbium) technology with their silicon-on-insulator platform to create this quantum memory. The company is currently being incubated at Chicago’s Duality Quantum Accelerator. Additional information can be seen in a press release provided by memQ here.
February 15, 2023
SandboxAQ Raises $500 Million in a Series D Round
SandboxAQ initially was spun off from Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google) in March of 2022. At that time, they disclosed that they had raised a 9 figure funding round, e.g. something above $100 million, from investors including T. Rowe Price, Eric Schmidt, Breyer Capital, Guggenheim Partners and Thomas Tull. We have learned that they continued to raise additional funds after the spin off and have closed their Series D round in December 2022 with a total of $500 million in funding. The company has not disclosed the names of any additional investors beyond the ones originally participating last year, but they did indicate that Alphabet is not a shareholder because SandboxAQ wanted to be able to work with other cloud providers that compete with Google. Click here for more.
February 15, 2023 – News Brief
Quantum Brilliance Has Raised $18 Million USD in Funding to Further Develop Its Room Temperature NV-Diamond Quantum Accelerators
Quantum Brilliance is an Australian quantum hardware startup that is using Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) diamond to create qubits that have long coherence times, run at room temperature, have low power requirements, and can be miniaturized to fit into a 19 inch rack panel. Rather than saying they are developing a quantum computer, they are marketing their devices as quantum accelerators as devices that can be integrated into an HPC data center or used for edge computing. This new funding has come from investors including include Breakthrough Victoria, Main Sequence, Investible, Ultratech Capital Partners, MA Growth Ventures, Jelix Ventures, Rampersand and CM Equity Partners. The company will be using the funds for R&D, improve manufacturing, and expand its international operations beyond its current locations in Australia and Germany. The company previously raised about $11 million in previous rounds and in April 2022 established a the Research Hub for Diamond Quantum Materials in Victoria, Australia. They currently have a two qubit device available for integration testing and last year installed one of these devices at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth, Australia. Additional information about this funding can be found in a news release available here.
February 14, 2023 – News Brief
Quantinuum Has Recruited Rajeeb (Raj) Hazra as Its New CEO
Quantinuum has added to its management team by recruiting Rajeeb (Raj) Hazra to be its new CEO. Dr. Hazra has a strong background in supercomputing and high performance computing. Previously he was the Senior Vice President & General Manager of the Computing & Networking Business Unit at Micron Technology. Before that he spent almost 25 years in senior position at Intel Corporation with the last being the Senior Vice President & GM Enterprise & Government, Data Center Group. Quantinuum’s former CEO Ilyas Khan will remain with the company and will become Vice Chairman and Chief Product Officer. He will also remain on Quantinuum’s Board of Directors. A press release provided by Quantinuum announcing these changes can be accessed here.
February 13, 2023
Quantum Computing Inc.’s New Subsidiary Will Support NASA Climate Change Monitoring
Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) has established a news subsidiary called QI Solutions based in Arizona to market QCI solutions to government and defense organizations. This new subsidiary has already received their first award which is a subcontract from Science Systems Applications, Inc. (SSAI) to support NASA in testing a proprietary quantum photonic system for remote sensing. Click here for our full article covering these two developments.
February 12, 2023
Who’s News: Management Changes at Quantum Computing Inc. and Rigetti Computing
Quantum Computing Inc., is forming a new Technical Advisory Board and has appointed its first member. They have also added a new member to their Board of Directors. And Rigetti Computing has appointed both a new CFO as well as a new CTO. Click here for details on these management changes.
February 11, 2023
Classiq Academia Program Announced with Microsoft Azure as Its First Launch Partner
Classiq is launching its Classiq Academia program targeting for educational institutes providing courses or doing research on quantum programming. This program is currently free-of-charge and is intended to make it easier for researchers and students to start programming quantum computers at a higher level rather than at the low quantum assembly level so that they can focus on the application development. Once a program has been designed it can be submitted to Microsoft’s Azure Quantum system for using the Azure Quantum Resource Estimation Service, simulating the program, or running it on quantum hardware. The program is currently free, but you must have an academic email domain address to register and have a priority position on the waiting list. More information about this program and the collaboration between Microsoft and Classiq is available in a blog posted on Microsoft’s website here and a page on Classiq’s website that describes the Classiq Academia program here.
February 11, 2023
Quantum Xchange Launches a Partner Program
Quantum Xchange has launched a Phio Partner Program (P3) for managed connectivity providers, networking-as-a-service vendors, SD-WAN and VPN original equipment manufacturers (OEM), managed security service providers (MSSP), and other value-added resellers (VARs) servicing the network infrastructure market. These organizations will be able to offer the Phio TX solution to their own customers and these providers will be supported by Quantum Xchange with training, co-marketing programs, deal registration, discounts, and other programs that will help ensure the partner’s success. For the full article with additional details, click here.
February 10, 2023 – News Brief
Quantum Bridge Wins $1 Million CAD ($748K USD) Contract from Innovative Solutions Canada for Trialing Quantum Bridge’s Quantum Resistant Security Products
Quantum Bridge has developed a encryption key distribution technology that they call Distributed Symmetric Key Exchange (DSKE) that provides for the distribution of symmetric encryption keys without the use asymmetrical algorithms like RSA or PQC. The technique relies on pre-shared random numbers between DSKE clients and a group of Security Hubs. Innovative Solutions Canada is a Government of Canada innovation program that provides funding to Canadian innovators. They will be testing two Quantum Bridge products that use this DSKE technique called Key Management Entity and Black Phone. The Key Management Entity uses DSKE to deliver keys to network hardware in any layer of the communications stack. Black Phone an application that uses pre-shared keys on mobile devices to protect and authenticate all the devices voice and data communication. Additional information about this contract is available in a news release available here. And additional information about Quantum Bridge’s DSKE technology is described in a preprint paper which can be accessed here.
February 9, 2023 – News Brief
BASF Joins the SEEQC-led QuPharma Project to Research Using Quantum for Simulating Chemical Reactions
Merck KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany is one of the world’s largest chemical companies and has an active quantum research efforts ongoing. They have partnered with several quantum companies already including a partnership with Multiverse to explore foreign exchange optimization and another one with Pasqal to look at the potential impacts of climate change. The QuPharma consortium was formed in 2021 with funding of a £6.8 million ($9M USD) from Innovate UK to build a commercially scalable application-specific quantum computer designed to tackle prohibitively high costs within pharmaceutical drug development. It is led by SEEQC with additional partners including Riverlane, Oxford Instruments, the University of Oxford, Medicines Discovery Catapult, and members from the Science and Technology Facilities Council, including the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre and the Hartree Centre. The specific problem that BASF will research with this group involves the quantum simulation of dissolved catalysts also known as homogeneous catalysis. Additional information about this new collaboration can be found in a press release provided by SEEQC which can be accessed here.
February 9, 2023 – News Brief
Terra Quantum Receives an Investment from Investcorp
Investcorp is a global private equity firm founded in Bahrain in 1982 with 510 employees and over $50 billion in Assets Under Management (AUM). Their investments range across a broad range of private equity, real estate, credit, and other areas. Last year they launched a global institutional blockchain fund from Abu Dhabi. They have invested an undisclosed amount in Terra Quantum. Terra Quantum has expertise in quantum security and quantum cryptography when can have uses for development of quantum resistant blockchain and other crypto algorithms. Besides providing Quantum Security as a Service which they consider as one of their core areas, they also participate in two other core areas including Quantum Algorithms as a Service and Quantum Computing as a Service. A news release from Terra Quantum announcing that Investcorp is a new investor is available here.
February 8, 2023 – News Brief
Indian State Government Signs MoU with Innogress to Set Up a Quantum Data Center in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Innogress will work with partner GAN Tech. UK. to set up a quantum data center in Greater Noida. Noida is short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority and is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (NCR) of India. The data center will be called ‘IQDC’ standing for Indraprastha Quantum Data Center. It will join several other classical data centers that have been set up in the Noida/Greater Noida area. Innogress also has another project to set up a quantum technology park called the Greater Karnavati Quantum Computing Technology Park (GKQCTP) in the Gujarat state of India. That project is planned to host 10-15 firms working to develop various areas of quantum tech and will include facilities for materials processing, R&D, manufacturing, and other activities. Additional information about the MoU to construct the quantum data center is available in an article posted on the India Education Dairy website here.
February 7, 2023 – News Brief
Nanofiber Quantum Technologies Receives a Venture Investment of 200 Million Yen ($1.5M USD)
Nanofiber Quantum Technologies (NanoQT) is a quantum hardware startup located in Japan that is pursuing a technology of nanofiber-based Cavity QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) based upon research by Professor Takao Aoki of Waseda University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering. The funding came from Waseda University Ventures, a new fund set up last year that specializes in startup investments in the deep tech area based upon research created at universities and other research institutes. This investment was made last August, but was only made public recently. NanoGT’s Cavity QED (quantum electrodynamics) technology is a hybrid system of atoms and light. It can provide fully connected qubits and the company claims that it can be easily scaled to 10,000 qubits in a single cavity. In addition, they indicate that the nanofiber resonators can be coupled with optical fibers for communication with low loss to create a quantum network for additional scalability. Additional information about this investment is available in a blog posting on the Waseda University Ventures’ website here (in Japanese). Additional information about NanoQT and their technology can be seen on their website here.
February 6, 2023 – News Brief
Quantinuum Partners with Japan’s Cybertrust to Provide Hardened Private Keys for IoT Devices
Cybertrust has integrated the Quantum Origin quantum random number generator (QRNG) product from Quantinuum into their certificate issuance and distribution platform for use by IoT (Internet of Things) devices. Cybertrust is Japan’s first commercial certificate authority and will use this technology along with the NIST-selected post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms for the certificates that IoT devices use to authenticate their connection to other devices. The Quantum Origin product uses quantum mechanical principles to develop very strong non-deterministic random numbers that can be used as cryptography keys. It is a cloud-hosted platform that makes it easy for an end user to use and integrate with the rest of their cybersecurity platform. Additional details about this partnership can be found in a new release provided by Quantinuum which is located here.
February 3, 2023 – News Brief
OQC Raises About £869,000 ($1M USD) in Second Round Funding
This investment funding for Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) follows a £38 Million ($46M USD) Series A round that they raised last year. The investors include Quantum Exponential whose portion was £299,997 and also Japanese private equity firm HiJoJo Partners. The funds will be used by OQC for R&D and also to expand the company’s effort in Asia with a focus on Japan. OQC currently has available an 8 qubit processor named “Lucy” which uses their proprietary 3D Coaxmon technology and Lucy can be accessed through Amazon Braket or OQC’s own private quantum cloud. The company is also partnering with Cyxtera install one of OQC”s superconducting processors in Cyxtera’s Reading Data Center Campus LHR3. Additional information about this investment is available in a news release posted on the Quantum Exponential website here.
February 2, 2023 – News Brief
QIC, QED-C, Q-STAR and QuIC Form a Consortium of Quantum Consortiums
Several quantum industry consortiums have been established in the past few years to help promote the advancement of quantum technology within their country or geographic reason. Four of them have been meeting together informally for over a year and have now signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish the International Council of Quantum Industry Associations to have a more formal structure. The consortiums include Quantum Industry Canada (QIC) in Canada, the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) in the U.S., the Quantum Strategic industry Alliance for Revolution (Q-STAR) in Japan, and the Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC) in Europe. Each of the consortiums has similar individual goals to develop supply chains, open markets, exchange talent, develop international standards, protect intellectual property, and enhance access to funding. And by working together to collaborate on various projects and improve communications between them they can help each other become even more effective in achieving their goals. A press release announcing their signing of the MOU is available here.
February 1, 2023 – News Brief
SandboxAQ Wins an SBIR to Research Quantum Navigation Sensors
SandboxAQ has won a Direct-to-Phase-II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) from the U.S. Air Force to research and develop a quantum navigation sensor that can be used in GPS-denied environments. Phase II SBIR’s typically are awarded in amounts up to $1,000,000 and typically last 24 months. SandboxAQ has been working on ultra-sensitive magnetic sensors that could potentially detect minute changes in the earth’s magnetic field in different locations. By creating a map that records the magnetic fields ahead of time, an airplane flying over a particular area can later sense the field and compare it with the information on the map. This type of approach would not depend upon satellites and be resistant to jamming. There are other approaches to creating quantum based navigation including those based upon inertial navigation and precision timing devices. SandboxAQ will be leveraging its expertise in both AI and quantum technologies for this program. SandboxAQ’s announcement of this award can be accessed here and a page on their website that describes several of their quantum sensing activities can be seen here.
January 31, 2023 – News Brief
PsiQuantum, Atom Computing, and Microsoft Chosen for DARPA’s US2QC Program
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has initiated a new program called Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) to determine whether any underexplored and revolutionary approaches to quantum computing are capable of achieving utility-scale operation much faster than conventional predictions. The program is anticipated to be a five year program consisting of four phases. DARPA first posted a funding opportunity announcement seeking proposals for this program in February 2022. The goal will be to develop a fault-tolerant quantum computer that can ultimately provide utility-scale quantum computing. They have selected PsiQuantum with their photonic based approach, Atom Computing with their neutral atom based approach, and Microsoft with their topological qubit approach to participate in this program. The first phase will be to have each company develop a design concept with subsequent phases to design, construct, and test system based upon the design concept to see if they can meet the utility-scale requirements. Additional information about the selection of these three companies is available in press releases from DARPA here, from PsiQuantum here, from Atom Computing here, and from Microsoft here.
January 31, 2023
Q-CTRL Raises $27.4 Million USD in Series B-1 Funding
Q-CTRL, a company developing quantum infrastructure software, received $27.4 million in B-1 funding bringing the total raised to date to $52 million. The company asserts that this is the largest fund raise of any quantum software company. Investors participating in this round include Salesforce Ventures, Alumni Ventures, ICM Allectus, Mindrock Capital, former General Dynamics Vice President Bill Lightfoot, global rugby legend John Eales and continuing investors Airbus Ventures, Data Collective, Horizons, Main Sequence Ventures, and Ridgeline Partners. Click here for more.
January 30, 2023 – News Brief
Shanghai Based TuringQ Receives Series A Investment of Hundreds of Millions Yuan
TuringQ is a quantum startup in Shanghai, China that is developing photonic based quantum processors and an associated quantum operating system. They were formed in February 2021. Although the specific amount of funding wasn’t made public, it was characterized to be in the hundreds of millions of yuan, which would likely equate to somewhere between $15 and $100 million USD. The investors included the China Internet Investment Fund, Tsinghua Holdings Capital, Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group, and Orient Securities. This round of funding follows earlier Pre-A+ funding rounds that totaled 500 million yuan ($73 million USD). The funds will be used to continue development of their full-stack products, build capacity for mass production of their chips, and promote commercialization of industry applications. The company has been working with several customers including the Bank of China and China Merchants Bank. Additional information about this funding is available in an article published by EqualOcean here.
January 28, 2023 – News Brief
U.S. Department of Energy Announces $9.1 Million in Funding for 13 Projects in Quantum Information Science (QIS) with Relevance to Nuclear Physics
The projects include development of next generation materials and architectures for superconducting qubits, solid state quantum simulators, quantum sensors, quantum optomechanical sensors for improving measurements of optical decay, and others. The projects can have a duration of up to three years and were selected through a competitive DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement titled Quantum Horizons: QIS Research and Innovation for Nuclear Science. A news release announcing the award funding is available on the DOE website here and a list of the awardees and their project can be seen here.
January 28, 2023 – News Brief
QuSecure Signs Agreement with Arrow Electronics to Distribute QuSecure’s QuProtect™ Quantum Cybersecurity Software
Arrow Electronics is one of the world’s largest distributors of electronic components and related services with over 20,000 employees and 2021 revenue of about $34.5 billion. They have over 220,000 commercial and federal channel partners and will work through these channels and QuSecure to distribute QuSecure’s QuProtect quantum security solution to help customers secure their IT systems from quantum attacks on their encrypted communications. They will be the first large technology distributor to broadly offer a PQC (Post Quantum Security) solution. More information about QuSecure and their agreement with Arrow can be found in a press release available here.
January 27, 2023
Crédit Agricole CIB, Multiverse, and Pasqal Partner to Explore Potential QC Applications in Finance
Crédit Agricole CIB is the corporate and investment banking arm of Credit Agricole Group based in Paris, France with over 8900 employees worldwide. They have been investigating potential finance use cases for quantum computing and have been working over the past year and a half with Multiverse Computing and Pasqal on two different ones. The goal was to develop Proof-of-Concept implementations using the currently available quantum processors with about 50 qubits and then scale the implementations up for production use when larger processors with roughly 300 qubits are available in the next one to two years. Click here for details on the two use cases they investigated and an assessment on how they might be able to provide a quantum advantage for the bank in the near future.
January 27, 2023 – News Brief
Multiverse Computing and IBM Partner with PINQ2 to Accelerate Quantum Computing Efforts in Quebec
Platform for Digital and Quantum Innovation (PINQ2) is a non-profit organization initiated by the University of Sherbrooke and the Canadian Ministry of Economy and Innovation to provide companies in Quebec, Canada with technical expertise and IT infrastructure to accelerate their digital transformation. They will be working as part of the Quantum Sherbrooke Innovation Zone to develop an innovation ecosystem around quantum technologies which will include installation of both classical and quantum computers within their infrastructure. This will include a 127 qubit IBM System One quantum processor which will be installed at an IBM facility in Bromont, Quebec, Canada, about 50 miles West of Sherbrooke. Multiverse Computing will partner with them by contributing to the PINQ² platform as part of customer projects and providing technical training on Multiverse products and solutions. Additional information about Multiverse’s partnership is available in a news release provided by Multiverse here and information about IBM’s first quantum system System One installation in Canada can be found in a news release here.
January 26, 2023
Infleqtion Collaborates with World View to Show How Quantum Can Be Used Not in the Cloud, but Rather Above the Clouds
Infleqtion is teaming up with World View to understand how Infleqtion’s quantum based sensors could be used in such an environment. They will be working together to demonstrate how Infleqtion’s cold atom based quantum sensor products, such as their precision timing and ultrasensitive RF sensors, can be used in applications for the defense and commercial markets. The aim of these initial tests is to demonstrate the usefulness of using the two companies’ technologies together so that they can convince prospective customers to look at using the quantum sensor and stratospheric balloon technologies together to provide advantages in a customer’s commercial application. Click here for our full article with additional information about this collaboration.
January 26, 2023 – News Brief
University of Sussex to Offer an Online Masters in Quantum Technology Applications and Management
The University of Sussex will start offering an online Masters in Quantum Technology Applications and Management which will be the first fully online version available in the UK and possibly worldwide. The program will combine scientific theory with practical business skills and is aimed at professionals who are looking to advance their scientific knowledge to conduct research, commercialize a quantum technologies and set up or manage a quantum division within their company, or to develop their quantum literacy to more effectively support colleagues in quantum-focused roles. The first course will start teaching in May 2023 with subsequent entry points in January, March, May, July, September, and November each year. The full course would consist of three carousels consisting of eleven different modules including a final project. It would be completed within a 2 to 4 year time period and have a tuition cost of £12,240 (about $15,100 USD). The program also offers other pathways that would consist of fewer modules, provide a certificate of completion instead of a full Masters degree, and be less costly. Applications are now open and additional information is available in a press release here and a web page with the course details here.
January 24, 2023 – News Brief
Chalmers University Receives 102 Million Swedish Krona ($10M USD) to Make Available a Quantum Computer for Swedish Industry
The Wallenberg Centre for Quantum Technology (WACQT) at Chalmers University has developed a 25 qubit quantum processor which they are using and experimenting with internally. However, it is not available for use by external users in industry because the Chalmers researchers are constantly working with it. To solve this problem, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation will be providing Chalmers with a grant of 102 Million Krona to build a second processor and make it available to other users in Sweden over the cloud. The purpose of this second processor will be to serve as a test bed and raise Sweden’s competence level in quantum technology and also to provide a significantly cheaper way for Swedish users to access a quantum processor than other alternatives. The funding will also be used to establish a Quantum Helpdesk to support users. A test bed for testing components will be ready in 2024 with cloud access for running algorithms scheduled for 2025. The initial machine will have 25 qubits but the plan will be to upgrade it to 40 qubits in a few years. A news release announcing this new project has been posted on the Chalmers University website here.
January 24, 2023
PASQAL Receives a €100 Million ($108M USD) Series B Funding Round
PASQAL, a leading French-based quantum hardware providers developing quantum processors based upon neutral atom technology, raised €100 million in Series B funding to bring the total amount raised so far to about €125 million. The round was led by new investor Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore with additional participation from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Wa’ed Ventures and Bpifrance, through its Large Venture Fund, and continuing investors Quantonation, the Defense Innovation Fund, Daphni and Eni Next. This investment is the largest private quantum fund raise that has occurred in Europe so far. Click here for more.
January 23, 2023 – News Brief
Welinq Receives a €5 Million ($5.4M USD) Pre-Seed Round Funding
Welinq is a Paris, France based startup founded in 2020 that is developing quantum memory technology which would be critical for extending the range of a quantum communications network and could also be used in connecting multiple quantum computers together for scaling up quantum computing. Their product is based upon a laser-cooled neutral-atom technology which allows them to achieve high qubit fidelities. The funding round was led by Quantonation with additional participation from Luxembourg-based Runa Capital and support from the Paris Region, the French National Quantum Initiative, the French Banque Publique d’Investissement (BPI), and the European Commission. Additional information is available in a news posting on the Quantonaton website that can be accessed here.
January 23, 2023 – News Brief
Xanadu Receives $40 Million CAD ($29.8M USD) from the Canadian Government’s Strategic Innovation Fund
Announced during a visit to Xanadu by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the investment will help the company build and commercialize a photonic-based, fault-tolerant quantum computer. The investment is part of the Canadian Quantum Strategy that we reported on earlier this month. Almost half of the $360 million CAD budgeted for that program is intended for commercialization. Additional information about this Xanadu investment can be found in a press release posted on the website of the Canadian Prime Minister here.
January 21, 2023 – News Brief
QuSecure Introduces QuEverywhere, a Quantum-safe Orchestration Solution
QuEverywhere is an end-to-end feature of the QuProtect software solution from QuSecure that is designed to provide quantum resilient connections without any user installations. It would be particularly handy for mobile or IOT installations where doing a software upgrade on all the devices in an enterprise could be particularly laborious. The solution utilizes PQC (Post Quantum Cryptography) algorithms which are compliant with NIST’s latest recommendations and the solution is also designed to be crypto-agile so that the algorithms can be upgraded in the future if better ones are needed. QuSecure indicated that Swiss based VeroWay, a company that delivers high-performance, blockchain powered core banking solutions, is a recent customer that currently services 15 million users and they will be leveraging QuSecure’ solutions to protect their communications of digital asset storage and transaction. Additional information about QuSecure’s announcement of QuEverywhere is available in a news release posted on their website here.
January 20, 2023
Who’s News: Management Changes at QC Ware and Quix Quantum
QC Ware has added a new Director of Marketing. Quix Quantum has appointed a new Chairman of their Supervisory Board and promoted two individuals to Chief Technology Officer and Chief Science Officer roles. Click here for more details on these changes.
January 20, 2023 – News Brief
IonQ to Open a 65,000 Square Foot Manufacturing Facility in Washington State
IonQ previously mentioned a plan to establish a manufacturing facility in the Seattle area in their Q2 Earning Release and conference call and they have now announced it will be located in a 65,000 square foot (about 6,000 square meter) facility in Bothell, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. This facility will become IonQ’s primary production engineering facility and will also house the company’s second data center. This location makes a lot of sense for IonQ since their machines are already available on the cloud services of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google which also have facilities in the area. IonQ is also working with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), also located in Washington state, to develop a sustainable, perpetual source of barium qubits which will be used in IonQ’s next generation quantum processors. There is also a good potential talent pool available from nearby universities including the University of Washington, Washington State University, and the Westerm Washington University. In addition, their is a vibrant high tech and photonics industry based in the Pacific Northwest that could be helpful to IonQ’s efforts in the future. Additional information about IonQ’s plans for this facility can be seen in a press release available here.
January 19, 2023 – News Brief
Quside Receives Venture Investment from German Firm TRUMPF Ventures
Although the exact amount of the investment from TRUMPF Ventures was not specified, it is said to be in the single-digit millions of euros. Quside is a startup located near Barcelona, Spain and founded in 2018 as a spinout from ICFO. They provide very high speed quantum random number generators (QRNG) with performance in the Gb/second range. Their devices are used to create highly random number streams for use in encryption and certain simulation applications. The devices provide random numbers with high entropy since they are based upon quantum mechanical properties and they are also low in power because they are built with photonic integrated circuit technology. In some applications the energy consumption can be as much as 20X lower. A news release provided by TRUMPF Ventures announcing this investment can be accessed here.
January 18, 2023 – News Brief
Quantum Machines Receives Another $20 Million in Venture Funding and Continues to Grow Their Customer Base
Quantum Machines has disclosed they have received another $20 million in funding late last year. This funding was added to the $50 million Series B funding that the company originally announced in 2021 and it brings total company funding to $100 million. The company is not disclosing the names of the investors for these additional funds, but did indicate that it includes both new and existing investors. The company also announced they are now serving 280 customers worldwide and had substantial revenue growth in 2022 with sources indicating that it exceeded $10 million. The company now has 140 employees including the personnel at QDevil, a company they acquired last year. The company also announced in 2022 a project to lead the establishment of the Israel Quantum Computing Center and partnerships with Toyota Tsusho, the European EuRyQa project, and others. Additional information about Quantum Machines venture funding and other recent developments are available in a press release that can be accessed here.
January 18, 2023 – News Brief
Xanadu and Rolls Royce Collaborate to Add New Functionality to Xanadu’s Pennylane Software
Pennylane is a Python-based open-source software framework that provides algorithm libraries for applications including quantum machine learning, quantum chemistry, and quantum computing. It is hardware agnostic and supports many different quantum hardware backends. Xanadu and Rolls-Royce will be working together to develop new functionality that supports a new algorithm for Pennylane called the Quantum Singular Value Transformation (QSVT). This algorithm may be useful for a number of important potential aerospace quantum computing applications including materials chemistry and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This is the second such partnership related to quantum software that Rolls-Royce has been involved in. Last October, software company Classiq announced that they were working with Rolls-Royce on leveraging the quantum HHL algorithm to solve a linear set of equations that are used in hybrid classical/quantum implementation of CFD. Additional information about the collaboration between Xanadu and Rolls-Royce can be found in a press release provided by Xanadu located here.
January 17, 2023
D-Wave Announces Continued Technical Progress and Customer Traction at Its Annual Qubits 2023 Conference
At its annual Qubits 2023 conference being held in Miami, Florida, D-Wave Quantum Inc. announced continued progress on its Clarity product roadmap as well as continued progress with customers developing solutions that can run on their quantum annealer. Click here for our full article summarizing some of the highlights.
January 16, 2023 – News Brief
Qrypt and Megaport Demonstrate Quantum Secure Communications Using Qrypt Key Generation Technology
Megaport is a global digital networking company that provides a Network as a Service (NaaS) platform. They connect about 795 data centers worldwide including major cloud services from AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and many others. Qrypt is a startup developing quantum secure solutions using its own technology based upon never directly transmitting keys and ensuring that all keys are completely random using Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNG) to ensure complete entropy. Their approach to providing quantum secure communications is different from some of the others since they do not use the Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and their approach is based upon the generation of identical symmetric keys at multiple endpoints, without ever needing to distribute that key over the wire. For an end user, the Qrypt solution is available as a software download and does not require the installation of any additional hardware. The demonstration included file sharing applications using Qrypt’s solution between several global data centers, including AWS in San Francisco, Azure US East in Virginia, and Google Cloud in Tokyo. This quantum secure communications capability is now available to be used with any type of data as an option for Megaport’s customers. Additional information about this is available in a news release provided by Qrypt which can be accessed here.
January 16, 2023 – News Brief
Australian New South Wales Government to Provide $7 Million AUD ($4.6M USD) in Funds for Quantum Commercialization
The Australian New South Wales (NSW) government will be providing enterprises in the state with funds to support commercializing of their idea and enable them to attract large-scale private investment. The NSW government has identified quantum technology as a high value sector. This program is targeting quantum hardware or software technologies at the Technology Readiness Level of between TRL 3-7 (i.e. early stage or mid-stage commercialization) . The grants will be made to enterprises for amounts between $200,000 to $4,000,000 AUD ($139K USD to $2.8M USD) and will be provided as a one time grant. If the project becomes successful, the funds would need to be eventually paid back. The applications will be awarded on a competitive basis with an application deadline of 10 AM (AEDT) on February 2, 2023. The successful applications will be announced later in February, March, and April. Additional information about this award program is available on the website of the NSF Chief Scientist & Engineer and can be viewed here.
January 13, 2023 – News Brief
Canadian Government Unveils Quantum Strategy with $360 Million CAD ($269M USD) in Funding
The Canadian Quantum Strategy has a goal of expanding Canada’s research, talent, and industrial base in quantum technology to help make the country a leader in the field. It will focus on three fields including Computing Hardware & Software, Communications, and Sensors. The investments being made are being divided into three areas: Research ($141M CAD), Talent ($45M CAD), and Commercialization ($169M CAD). The implementation will be advised by a new Quantum Advisory Council with Dr. Raymond Laflamme, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Canada Research Chair in Quantum Information at the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, and Dr. Stephanie Simmons, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Canada Research Chair in Silicon Quantum Technologies at Simon Fraser University and founder and Chief Quantum Officer of Photonic Inc. serving as co-chairs. The Government of Canada has already invested $1 billion CAD $745M USD) since 2012 to support quantum research and this new program will help to continue to the momentum and several efforts and funding grants are already underway. Additional information can be found in a news release provided by the Canadian Office of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry that can be seen here and also a video of the program announcement event held at the Perimeter Institute here.
January 12, 2023
IBM Announces Third Annual Open Science Prize Contest with $50,000 in Prizes
Every year, IBM announces a quantum programming challenge and awards prizes to those who can solve it best. This year’s problem asks participants to prepare the ground state of a Heisenberg spin-1/2 Hamiltonian on a kagome lattice using IBM Quantum’s 16-qubit ibmq_guadalupe system. The deadline for submitting an answer is April 15, 2023 and the winner will receive a prize of $30,000 and the runner up will receive $20,000. For more, click on the full article here.
January 12, 2023
Deloitte’s Quantum Climate Challenge 2023
Deloitte is holding a quantum climate challenge that seeks to have participants use quantum computers to simulate materials that filter carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to help reach the 2°C temperature rise goal for minimizing the affects of global warming. They will be awarding a total of 12000 Euros ($12900 USD) to the top five finalists who submit solutions. Click here for our full article with more information about this challenge .
January 11, 2023 – News Brief
Xanadu Partners with the Korean Institute of Science and Technology
Xanadu will be working with the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) on projects related to quantum algorithms to help design next-generation lithium-ion batteries and ways of optimizing quantum computing hardware. Xanadu has decided to focus its efforts on fault tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) rather than NISQ and the battery project will work to find better battery designs that are longer lasting charging, increased safety, and better energy storage for electric vehicles. KIST is government funded and is Korea’s leading science and technology research agency employing over 2000 researchers. The companies will be utilizing Xanadu’s Pennylane software programming tool for this project. In turn, KIST will help Xanadu leverage South Korea’s industrial infrastructure and manufacturing expertise to help the development of quantum processor hardware. A press release provided by Xanadu announcing this partnership is available here.
January 11, 2023 – News Brief
Fujitsu to Supply CESGA with a €14 Million ($15M USD) Quantum Computer
The Galician Supercomputing Center (CESGA or Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia) is a high performance computing center in Galicia, Spain funded by the European Commission, the goverment of Spain, and the the regional government of Galicia and CSIC. The operate a supercomputer named FinisTerrae which is the third most powerful supercomputer in Spain. They will be acquiring from Fujitsu a quantum computer, a high-performance computer, an emulator of quantum algorithms and a storage system and will integrate this equipment with the rest of their IT infrastructure. Installation will occur during 2023. This activity is part of the Quantum Technologies Pole of Galicia set up with €30 million ($32.2M USD) in funding that will be active in five area academia; research, technology and singular entities; the economy and enterprises; society; and infrastructure and help establish Galicia as a key hub for quantum activity in Europe. Additional information is available in a news release (in Spanish) provided by CESGA here.
January 11, 2023
Duality Quantum Accelerator Now Taking Applications for Cohort 3
Duality is now accepting applications for Cohort 3 which will start on July 17, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. They are a quantum accelerator led by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Quantum Exchange which provides entrepreneurial and business training, mentorship, technical expertise, industry exposure, access to office space and state-of-the-art facilities along with $50,000 to fledgling quantum startups in a year-long program to help them get started. Click here for our full article with more details about this program and information on how to apply.
January 10, 2023
IonQ Acquires Assets of Entangled Networks
Entangled Networks is a Canadian startup company started in February 2021 that specializes in developing hardware and software solutions for connecting multiple quantum processors within a data center to create a larger system. The Quantum Computing Report just posted a podcast last month with two of the founders of this company that provides greater insight into their plans. This fits in well with IonQ’s technical strategy because they have long planned to scale their quantum computers using a modular quantum computing approach. Click here for the rest of the article.
January 9, 2023 – News Brief
Oxford Ionics Picks Up a £30 Million ($36.6M USD) Series A Venture Round
Oxford Ionics is a quantum hardware startup developing an ion trap based quantum processor using a proprietary, patented Electronic Qubit Control (EQC) technique based on microwave signals for controlling the qubits instead of the more common laser based controls. The company believes this approach combines the high qubit quality inherent in ion traps and will be more scalable than laser controlled ion traps. Because the controls and the ion traps can be integrated onto a silicon chip they take advantage of high volume semiconductor manufacturing technology. We reported last July that they are partnering with Infineon Technologies to manufacture the chips so they have a solid partner for that. Leading the round was Oxford Science Enterprises and Braavos Investment Advisers with additional participation from Lansdowne Partners, Prosus Ventures, 2xN, Torch Partners and Hermann Hauser. The company currently has 10 PhDs on staff and will be using the funds to expand their staff to continue developing their technology. You can access Oxford Ionics press release announcing this funding here.
January 7, 2023
New Product Releases: Pasqal’s Pulser Studio, IBM’s Sherbrooke Processor, and Google Cirq v1.1.0
Several interesting new product releases were made over the past few weeks including Pasqal’s Pulser Studio no-code development platform, IBM’s 127 qubit Sherbrooke processor, and a new release of Cirq version 1.1.0. Click here for additional information about these new releases.
January 7, 2023 – News Brief
European Union Authorizes €19 Million ($20.2M USD) Specific Grant Agreement (SGA) for Pilot Quantum Fabrication Infrastructures
The program will be led by Finland’s VTT and include 24 different organizations based in 9 different countries including Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Italy, Spain and Czech Republic. It will include funds to upgrade existing micro, nano and quantum technology infrastructures in Europe and allow the participants to design, prototype, and test new quantum devices. Overall the program will provide support for experimental production of devices using superconducting, photonics, semiconducting and diamond modalities and also involve creating a roadmap for transferring the prototype devices to an industrial production environment. VTT’s share of this funding will amount to €3.8 million Euros with the other participants receiving the rest. The program is scheduled to begin on March 1, 2023. More information about it can be found in a news release located on the VTT website which can be accessed here.
January 6, 2023 – News Brief
D-Wave and Davidson Technologies Announce a Multi-Year Reseller Agreement
Davidson Technologies is a 27 year old company headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama that specializes in providing advanced technical solutions to the aerospace and missile defense industry. They have entered into an agreement with D-Wave Quantum Inc., to resell D-Wave’s products and services, including the Leap™ quantum cloud service. In addition, they are also working together on a project to support classified quantum-hybrid applications. Davidson has a long history of providing solutions to the U.S. defense establishment in such areas as Advanced Cybersecurity Architectures, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Modeling & Simulation, and Systems Engineering & Integration. Their domain specific expertise and contacts should be able to help D-Wave expand its business in this area for certain use cases important to this sector such as supply chain optimization, logistics management, weapon system optimization, and vehicle routing. Additional details are available in a press release posted on the D-Wave website here.
January 3, 2023
Quantum Delta NL and NWO (Dutch Research Council) Award €5.3 Million ($5.6M USD) to Sixteen Dutch Quantum Research Projects
These 2022 awards were made by Quantum Delta NL in collaboration with the NWO (Dutch Research Council). It is part of an overall Dutch government budget of €42 million ($44.3M USD) for scientific research and innovation over a seven year period. There will be a similar call for awards in 2023 with additional projects selected for funding at that time. Click here for a listing of the projects being funded.
January 3, 2023 – News Brief
The Netherlands, France, and Germany Sign Statement to Cooperate on Quantum Technology
The governments of The Netherlands, France, and Germany have sign this statement in order to increase the synergies of their quantum efforts and to achieve critical mass and accelerate their advancement of their quantum technologies. The agreement will provide for informal information exchanges and regular meetings to discuss progress. This effort will not only include quantum research but other related areas including education, policy, implementation and use case development. Additional information on this agreement can be found in a news release posted on the Quantum Delta NL website here.
January 1, 2023 – News Brief
Israel Innovation Authority Providing 115 Million NIS ($32.6M USD) for Developing Israeli QC Technology
The funding of 115 million New Israeli Shekels (NIS) is being provided by the Israeli Innovation Authority to five Israeli companies including IAI Group’s Elta Systems division, Quantum Art, Classiq, Qedma, and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The consortium will also receive additional support from academic researchers in Israel. The three year program will pursue developing of two different quantum processors, one based upon superconducting technology and the other based upon ion trap technology with sizes in the dozens of qubits. Additional information about this award can be found in a news article in the Israeli website Calcalist available here.
December 23, 2022 – News Brief
Irish Government and EU Investing €10 Million to Set Up a QKD Network in Ireland
The 30 month long project, called the Quantum Communications Infrastructure (QCI) network or IrelandQCI, will create a network backbone from Dublin to Cork via Waterford using quantum channels over existing fiber optic cables. The project will be led by the Walton Institute with additional partners at Trinity College Dublin, Tyndall National InstituteUniversity College Dublin, Maynooth University, the Irish Centre for High-End Computing, HEAnet, and ESB Telecoms. Half of the funding will come from the Irish Government and the other half from the European Union (EU). The network will be part of an overall EU project called Quantum Communications Infrastructure (EuroQCI) that is working to establish a quantum network infrastructure across all of the EU. Additional information about this project is available in a news release provided by the Walton Institute that can be accessed here.
December 22, 2022
Ford and BMW Solve Quantum Chemical Challenges with Quantinuum’s InQuanto
The automotive industry is lining up to become a very strong and early adopter of quantum technology for a variety of reasons. Quantum computers are specifically adept at optimization and simulation. For automotive, this involves solving complex challenges in material design, battery technology simulation and eliminating as much costly and time-consuming real-time testing and prototyping as possible. Ford and BMW have made recent announcements as to how they are using the Quantinuum InQuanto computational chemistry software platform to address the challenges. Click here for the rest of the article.
December 21, 2022 – News Brief
National QIS Center for Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Accepting Applications for Undergraduate Summer Internships
The Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center (SQMS), led by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, is one of five elite National Quantum Initiative centers funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to research various areas of Quantum Information Science (QIS). The program places undergraduate sophomore and junior physics and engineering majors in a paid 10-week summer period from June 18 – August 26, 2023 with SQMS Center scientists and engineers on QIS projects. Interns would be paid $600 per week and students will have the opportunity to work at one of the twenty SQMS partner institutions, including Fermilab, Rigetti Computing, Northwestern University, Ames National Lab, NASA Ames, and more. The position is a 40 hour per week during the 10 week period and students will be expected to deliver presentations, write a research abstract, and develop a research project report on their work. The deadline to apply is February 15, 2023. For more details, you can visit a page on the Fermilab website here and to apply you can go to another webpage here.
December 16, 2022 – News Brief
BosonQ Psi is Releasing BQPhy™ for Accelerating CAE Simulations
The BQPhy™ program is a quantum-powered computer-aided engineering (CAE) software suite that accelerates various computer aided simulations commonly used by engineers. BosonQ Psi will be providing access to the alpha version of this product to a limited set of customers starting in early January for pilot testing. The initial alpha release will include a quantum-ready design optimization solver and GPU-optimized structural mechanics and thermal analysis solvers. Future versions are expected to include additional simulations models for electromagnetics analysis, electrochemistry analysis, acoustics analysis, fluid mechanics, multiphysics simulation, and digital twin. Two global automobile manufacturers have already tested the software to do proof-of-concept simulations. For more about BQPhy™, you can read a news release provided by BosonQ Psi announcing the alpha release posted here.
December 16, 2022 – News Brief
Applications Open for 2023 LANL Quantum Summer School
Since 2018, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been holding a quantum summer school for upper division undergraduate students and early graduate students to give them more exposure to quantum technology, learn from invited speakers, work on specific quantum projects, and receive one-on-one mentoring from LANL scientists. LANL will begin a new 10 week session in 2023 that will start on June 5, 2023. Roughly 20 students will be selected and provided fellowships ranging from $7,500 to $15,500 and will be exposed to the theoretical foundations of quantum computation and gain skills at programming commercial quantum computers. More information about this program can be seen at Quantum Computing Summer School Fellowship and application information is available at Apply for the Quantum Computing Summer School Fellowship. Applications for the 2023 session are open until January 22nd, 2023.
December 16, 2022 – News Brief
Oxford Quantum Circuits and Boston Limited Partner to Provide Quantum Computing-as-a-Service and Quantum Learning Services to the Market
Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) and Boston Limited has signed a Memorandum of Agreement to offer Quantum Computing-as-a-Service (QCaaS), training, and expertise in quantum computing technologies to their customers. OQC is a quantum hardware startup based in the UK working on superconducting quantum processors and Boston Limited is a UK headquartered company that provides consulting and training services in Machine Learning, AI, Security, and Storage, across several different industries. They are planning host an OQC certified training course on quantum computing. Additional information is available in a news release posted on the OQC website here.
December 15, 2022
Arqit Reports Its FY2022 Financial Results and Announces It Will No Longer Use Satellites
For the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2022, Arqit reported revenue of about $20 million comprised of $7.2 million from five contracts to use their QuantumCloud and Other Income comprised of $12.8 million in project contract revenue from the European Space Agency. Administrative expenses were $72.2 million for a Operating Loss of $52.1 million for the fiscal year. Of particular note are their items included in their SEC 20-F form and press releases. First, they are no longer planning on using satellites for their QuantumCloud. Second, they had their technology reviewed and valided by a team at the University of Surrey. And third, the company disclosed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was making a fact-finding inquiry into the SPAC merger between Arqit and Centricus Acquisition Corp and the company is cooperating with the investigation. Click here for more information about all their announcements.
December 14, 2022
U.S. Congress Passes the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act
The U.S. Congress has been working on a bill to have the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to help prioritize the migration of government agency information technology systems to post-quantum cryptography. The OMB will be instructed to provide guidance to other Federal agencies for the migration and also require the OMB to issue an annual report to Congress describing the status, risks, and funding needs for the migration. Click here for more details about this bill.
December 13, 2022 – News Brief
Global Quantum Intelligence (GQI) Formed as a Dedicated Market and Business Intelligence Firm Focused on Quantum Tech
Global Quantum Intelligence (GQI), a market and business intelligence firm steeped in quantum technology experience and solely dedicated to this sector, has just launched and already is serving major vendors and users, as well as governments and investors keen on gathering authoritative intelligence to guide business, policy and strategic decisions. The new firm unites four well-respected businesses in the quantum industry, with 22 years of quantum experience among them: Co-founders André König, Chief Executive Officer; Doug Finke, Chief Content Officer; and David Shaw, Chief Analyst; along with Terrill Frantz, Chief Product and Technology Officer. The company provides its clients an annual membership to their intelligence portal with open access to all proprietary assets, data and experts, as well as four product offerings: due diligence services for startups and investors, round tables to collaboratively explore thought leadership topics, briefings on the state of quantum, and advertising/branding opportunities. The Quantum Computing Report website will remain in place but will be rebranded as the Quantum Computing Report by GQI. Additional information about the formation of GQI can be seen in a press release here or on the company’s website here.
December 13, 2022
Rigetti Brings Quantum ML Apps to Strangeworks Platform
Strangeworks, Inc. and Rigetti Computing, Inc. just announced that the Strangeworks platform will feature two new quantum machine learning (QML) applications from Rigetti. The quantum kernel and quantum convolutional “quanvolutional” neural network methods, specifically optimized for Rigetti quantum computers, target classification and regression applications development. Click here for the rest of the article.
December 12, 2022
Who’s News: Management Changes at Rigetti Computing, Orca Computing, Silicon Quantum Computing, Strangeworks, IonQ, PsiQuantum, and Arqit
Rigetti Computing has hired a new President and CEO. Orca Computing has hired a Chief Commercial Officer. Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) has added a President. CIO. Strangeworks has added a new Vice-President of Strategic Development. IonQ has hired a Chief Revenue Officer and added a new member to its Board of Directors. PsiQuantum has hired a Chief Business Officer. And Arqit has hired a new SVP of Cyber Security Strategy. Click here for more details about these management changes.
December 10, 2022 – News Brief
uptownBasel Opens a Quantum Computing Hub for Commercial Use in Switzerland
The uptownBasel Group has opened QuantumBasel, a Center of Competence for Quantum and Artificial Intelligence. It will provide organizations with access to quantum computers along with training, workshops, and support for utilizing them. It will provide Quantum as a Service with access to some of the latest quantum processors including the IBM Osprey 433 qubit superconducting processor and the D-Wave AdvantageTM annealing quantum computer which will be accessed via the LeapTM real-time quantum cloud service. The uptownBasel Group is building up a 70,000 square meter research and production site located in Arlesheim near Basel that they intend on becoming an international competence center for the many different advanced technologies of Industry 4.0. It is privately funded by the Monique and Thomas Staehelin family with a goal of eventually housing 50 to 100 companies that employ up to 2,500 people. Additional information about QuantumBasel is available in a press release here along with an associated press release from D-Wave here. The QuantumBasel website is also available with additional information and can be accessed here.
December 10, 2022 – News Brief
Bleximo to Expand R&D Operations to the Albany Nanotech Complex in New York State
Bleximo, a superconducting quantum hardware startup developing application specific quantum processors located in Berkeley, California will be expanding its R&D operations to include a new group at the Albany Nanotech Complex in upstate New York. The company also announced it will partner with NY CREATES, a non-profit that operates an advanced publicly-owned semiconductor research center. Facilities at the Nanotech Complex are used by several commercial companies including IBM, Tokyo Electron and others because they allow companies to prototype semiconductor processes using the most advanced tools. Previously, Bleximo had been using share university clean rooms for its processing that contain older manufacturing tools. By moving their chip processing to the Nanotech Complex, the company will be able to achieve more precision, higher reliability, and better yield. NY CREATES will also be able to use Bleximo’s Rubicon platform for testing new developments and processes. More information about this partnership is available in a press release posted on the NY CREATES website here.
December 10, 2022
QCI Working with Rabobank on Fraud Detection and also Sets Up a $25 Million At-the-Market Equity Sales Agreement
Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) has announced that it will be working with Dutch multinational Rabobank to demonstrate usage of fraud detection algorithms with its Dirac photonic-based entropy quantum computing. And in a separate and unrelated announcement they said they have set up a $25 million At-the-market equity sales arrangement with Ascendiant Capital Markets, LLC. Click here for our full article about these developments.
December 10, 2022 – News Brief
IQM and Keysight Will Partner to Research On-Premise Quantum Computing
IQM and Keysight have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to research how quantum computing can be implemented on-premise for high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Most quantum computer today is performed on the cloud at specific facilities set up for hosting quantum computers. This is for several reasons including the size of the computers, various environmental and infrastructure requirements, close availability of the design engineers to debug any problems, and operational considerations such as service engineers availability and spare parts logistics. Partnering with Keysight may allow IQM to miniaturize their control electronics and make it more robust to lessen maintenance requirements. Unlike some other quantum hardware companies, IQM has been explicitly pursuing a strategy of offering on-premise quantum computers to HPC centers and has installed a five qubit machine at Micronova, a facility jointly run by jointly run by VTT and Aalto University. It also has signed an agreement to install one of their quantum processors at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) near Munich. You can access a press release from IQM announcing this collaboration here.
December 10, 2022
Infleqtion Collaborates with Morningstar and also Launches SupercheQ, a Program to Obtain Quantum Advantage for Distributed Data Base Comparison
Infleqtion, which recently changed its corporate name from Coldquanta, has made two announcements this week. The first is a collaboration with Morningstar to integrate its SuperstaQ program with Morningstar Direct, Morningstar’s investment and portfolio analysis platform. The second announcement was the unveiling of a new program called SupercheQ. SupercheQ is a family of quantum protocols that achieves asymptotic advantage over classical protocols for checking the equivalence of files. Click here for more information about these two announcements.
December 7, 2022
IonQ and Hyundai Expand Quantum Automotive Innovation
IonQ and Hyundai just announced an expansion of their partnership. They will develop machine vision algorithms capable of conducting object detection on 3-D data from autonomous vehicles and simulate electrochemical reactions of a variety of metal catalysts. Click here for the rest of the story.
December 5, 2022 – News Brief
Q-CTRL is Providing Free Access to Their Fire Opal Error Mitigation Software
Q-CTRL, a quantum startup focusing on quantum control software, has made their latest Fire Opal software available at no charge on IBM quantum devices. And additional quantum providers will also be supported soon. The software has been able to improve algorithm accuracy by over 1000 times by taking a user’s program and running it through an efficient front-end compiler followed by an error-suppressing back-end compiler which uses a two-stage process for reducing errors at the circuit level, and implementing a new algorithm to improve the readout of the quantum algorithm’s results. The software uses AI based algorithms to implement these steps automatically to make it easier for an end user. As a result of the greater than 1000 times improvement in accuracy, the company indicates this can enable running algorithms which are over 10 times more complex in terms of gate levels. It also can potentially reduce runtime costs by over 100 times because algorithms need only be run once instead of being run for multiple shots and enabling the use of smaller, lower cost systems to run the algorithm. Additional information about Q-CTRL’s free access to Fire Opal is available in a press release that can be seen here, a blog article about the software here, and a technical paper that describes some of their experimental benchmarking results here.
December 4, 2022 – News Brief
Stony Brook University Awarded $6.5 Million to Construct a Quantum Internet Test Bed
The funds are being provided to Stony Brook University by the Long Island Investment Fund of the state of New York. This will amount to about 50% of the funds needed to create a Long Island Quantum Internet Test Bed. Stony Brook University is collaborating with Brookhaven National Laboratory to create a network of five nodes that are physically connected using commercially available optical fiber. This test bed will be among several other quantum test beds being created around the world including ones in New York City, Illinois, Washington DC, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Quebec, London, the Netherlands, and others. Right now, these networks are limited to a local area because quantum repeaters do not exist yet for extending the network to larger distances. But eventually, as quantum repeater technology becomes available, the goal will be to tie many of these networks together to create a national or global quantum internet that will be able to transmit entangled photons over long distances. Additional information about this grant to Stony Brook University can be found in a news article posted on their website here.
December 3, 2022 – News Brief
PASQAL and the University of Chicago Agree to Collaborate for Advancing Neutral Atom Quantum Computing
PASQAL is a Paris based quantum hardware startup founded in 2019 to develop quantum processors based upon ordered neutral atoms in 2D and 3D arrays. They will work with Professor Hannes Bernien at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago to develop new techniques for enabling high-fidelity qubit control. The aim will be to achieve superior scalability and the superior performance of PASQAL’s neutral atom quantum processors. Although the original technology used by PASQAL was based upon work done by the Quantum Optics – Atoms group within the Laboratoire Charles Fabry at the Institut d’Optique, this will be the company’s first collaboration with a university in the U.S. Additional information about this collaboration agreement can be found in a news release posted on the PASQAL website here.
December 3, 2022
Entanglement Exchange Website Create to Facilitate International Quantum Cooperation and Collaboration Through People Exchanges
Twelve countries including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States have joined together to form a new website called the Entanglement Exchange, that provides direct links to immigration and visa information for each of the countries from one common spot. Each country will be responsible for maintaining their own page, but it should help researchers seeking either to travel outside their country to pursue a foreign research opportunity, or others from a foreign country travelling to a particular company to do some research. Click here for our complete article about this new website.
December 3, 2022 – News Brief
U.S. and France Sign Statement of Cooperation for Quantum Technology
The statement was signed on November 30, 2022 and is similar to other statements the U.S. has signed with the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland. The agreement was signed by Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Chief Science Advisor to President Biden and Dr. Sylvie Retailleau, French Minister for Higher Education and Research. As a next step, the participants are hoping to conduct a joint workshop to explore potential scientific collaborations that could be formed between researchers in both countries. Additional information about this statement of cooperation is available in a notice on the U.S’s National Quantum Coordination Office (NQCO) website here.
December 3, 2022 – News Brief
Netherlands’ Quantum Delta NL Opens Its First “House of Quantum” Location in Delft
We reported last year on how the Netherland’s Quantum Delta NL (QDNL) was planning on opening dedicated buildings, called “House of Quantum” intended to house researchers and companies focusing on quantum technologies. These locations will contain high end labs and testbeds that different quantum companies can share and allowing them to reduce their capital costs of setting these up on their own. They may also benefit by having other quantum focused companies and organizations in the same location to share ideas and provide encouragement. QDNL has announced the opening of its first building of this type called Elektroncaweg in Delft. The first tenants including Quantum Orange Systems, Qblox, QuantWare, and QphoX have moved into this 2000 square meter building. Several other buildings scheduled to open between 2023 and 2026 including a 12,000 square meter Main Building which will also be in Delft. Additional information about this opening can be seen in a blog article located here and a website for the House of Quantum that you can visit here.
December 3, 2022 – News Brief
Quside Raises a Seven-Digit Series A Round
Quside, a company in Barcelona, Spain that provides Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNG)s, has raised a seven-digit series A round. The investors include the investment branch of Trumpf, an industrial manufacturer of photonic components, Bullnet Capital, a deep tech investor in Spain, Demium Capital, and TechVisionCapital. The funds will be used for expanding their customer base in high-end markets and scaling up its production capabilities. In the next few weeks, the company will be making additional announcements of new partners, customers, and advisors, as well as new product announcements for high-performance computing customers. Additional information about this funding is available in a news release posted on Quside’s website here.
December 2, 2022
EPB and Qubitekk Set Up an Open Quantum Network in Chattanooga
EPB of Chattanooga is electric power distribution and telecommunications company owned by the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Previously, they had constructed an extensive and very high speed fiber-optic network throughout the Chattanooga metropolitan area that can provide one gigabit per second internet speed to more than 175,000 homes and businesses. They are now partnering with Qubitekk to offer a Quantum as a Networking Service to customers in its area. EPB will make the EPQ Quantum Network available to government, industrial, academia, and others who wish to experiment with utilizing quantum communications for various applications. Click here for the rest of the article with additional details.
December 2, 2022
ColdQuanta Changes Corporate Name to Infleqtion
In order to better characterize all the different quantum related things that ColdQuanta is now involved in, the company has changed their corporate name to Infleqtion. The name ColdQuanta will still be used as a brand name for the components and research division of the company which is the original portion of the company when it was formed as a spin-off from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2007. Super.Tech will still be used as a brand name for the software activities of the company which came from the acquisition of Chicago-based startup Super.Tech in May of this year. The company indicates that other product specific brands will likely be created in the future. The corporate office of Infleqtion will be based in Louisville, Colorado which will oversee the company’s worldwide operations in Boulder, Colorado; Chicago, Illinois; Madison, Wisconsin; Oxford, England; and Japan. For more information about this change, you can view the announcement here and a short video here.
November 24, 2022
Horizon Quantum Computing is Opening a New Office in Dublin, Ireland
Horizon Quantum Computing, a quantum software startup headquartered in Singapore, has decided to open up a second office in Dublin, Ireland to advance development of their new generation of quantum programming tools that are intended to make the power of quantum computing accessible to every software developer. Click here for the full article with additional details.
November 23, 2022 – News Brief
Quantum Computing Inc. Introduces Software that Translates QUBO Problems to a Hamiltonian for Solving on their Dirac 1 Processor
In order to make it easier for customers to try out Quantum Computing Inc.’s (QCI) recently introduced Dirac 1 Entropy Quantum Computer, the company has announced a free software translator that can take problems expressed as an Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) format and convert to a Hamiltonian that can be an input to the Dirac 1 for solution. This is important for QCI because many D-Wave problems are formulated as QUBO problems. The software can handle problems with up to 10,000 variables and this will allow customers to make a comparison of the performance and solution accuracy between D-Wave’s quantum annealer and QCI’s Diraq 1. The software is free, but running the Hamiltonian on QCI’s processor will require signing up for their subscription plan that we reported on last month. The announcement from QCI about the availability of this software can be found on the QCI website here.
November 22, 2022 – News Brief
Classiq and Q-CTRL Partner to Offer an Integrated Tool that Provides the Best Features of Each Company’s Offerings in One Package
Although both Classiq and Q-CTRL are quantum software startups, they have been focusing on completely different areas of the quantum stack. Classiq offers a software package that allows users to specify their program using high-level functional models and then automatically compiles them into lower level quantum gates. While Q-CTRL provides quantum control infrastructure software that can optimize and implement the gates to achieve error mitigation to provide the highest possible accuracy in the calculations. The software achieves this by designing the necessary control pulses and other techniques to minimize noise and decoherence to achieve the lowest possible error rate. The companies have now agreed to work together to integrate Q-CTRL’s error mitigation software with Classiq’s software so that a user can use a single interface to specify their program as a functional model and then have the software automatically invoke Q-CTRL’s software to provide an optimized program as the output. The companies have indicated that their tools are hardware agnostic and can be used with many different quantum hardware platforms. You can view a news release announcing the partnership between these two companies posted on the Q-CTRL website here.
November 22, 2022
Rigetti Computing Reports Q3 Financial Results
Rigetti Computing reported Q3 revenues of $2.8 million compared with revenues of $2.1 million in the previous quarter. Gross profit was $2.0 million versus $1.3 million in the previous quarter and net GAAP loss was $18.8 million versus $10 million in Q2. The company ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $161 million. Click here for more.
November 20, 2022 – News Brief
SandboxAQ Wins Phase 1 SBIR from the U.S. Air Force to Determine the Feasibility of Its Quantum-Resistant Security Solutions
SandboxAQ, a quantum software startup spun off from Alphabet Inc. earlier this year, has won a Phase 1 SBIR for the U.S. Air Force to investigate who its suite of software solutions can protect the Air Force and Space Force data networks from quantum attacks. Phase 1 SBIR awards have typical amounts of about $225,000 for programs that last 6-12 months. The activities that SandboxAQ will perform will include conducting post-quantum cryptographic inventory analysis and performance benchmarking. You can read SandboxAQ’s press release announcing this award on their website here.
November 19, 2022 – News Brief
Pasqal and Eni Are Collaborating to Explore Quantum Computing Solutions for the Energy Sector
Pasqal, a quantum startup company developing neutral atom based quantum processors with headquarters near Paris France, has announced it is collaborating with Italian energy giant Eni to explore potential quantum solutions for a number of applications across its value chain including what they call the upstream, downstream, chemicals and renewables. Eni already operates one of the world’s most powerful privately-owned supercomputers in Eni’s Green Data Centre and the companies will work together to see how quantum computing can work together with Eni’s classical computing resources to enhance and accelerate the solution of important problems in Eni’s business. Eni has a long term goal of reaching a net zero carbon state by 2050 and solving some of these problems can help them make progress towards that goal. Eni’s venture capital arm, called Eni Next, has been an investor in Pasqal since 2021. For more about Pasqal’s work with Eni, you can read the press announcement provided by Pasqal which can be accessed here.
November 17, 2022
Algorithmiq Launches Aurora, a Drug Discovery Platform and Will Work with IBM on Drug Discovery Applications
Algorithmiq, a Helsinki, Finland, based quantum software startup, has announced a new software platform for drug discovery called Aurora. They have also announced that they have joined the IBM Quantum Network and will work with IBM to research improved drug discovery algorithms on IBM’s hardware. Click here for our article that covers both of these announcements.
November 16, 2022 – News Brief
Quandela Announces a European Quantum Cloud Service
In what it says is the first quantum cloud service in Europe, Quandela has announced that it has now made available an initial system with 5 photonic qubits for experimentation. The system can be programmed with Quandela’s Percival development toolkit which also supports Quandela’s photonic simulator allowing a user to simulate a program before running it on the real machine. The company plans on upgrading the system to reach 12 qubits by the end of 2023. The service was tested out recently in a quantum hackathon at the Sorbonne which had over 60 researchers and students participating. A user can try out the system for free by visiting Quandela’s Quantum Cloud web page located here. For more information, you can access a press release provided by Quandela which can be accessed here.
November 16, 2022
Microsoft Introduces a Quantum Resource Estimator Tool
One of the questions that a quantum algorithm developer wants to have answered is “How many qubits will I need to execute this program and many seconds (or hours) of runtime will I need to do it?”. This can be tricky, particularly when the currently available quantum processors are not large enough to execute the program in the first place. However, the developers know that quantum processors are constantly improving and in many cases it makes sense to develop something that will run on a quantum processor that may be available a few years from now. To help answer these questions, Microsoft has introduced a tool called a Quantum Hardware Resource Estimator that can give insight to both quantum algorithm designers and quantum hardware engineers on how many resources will be required in a quantum platform to run an algorithm that can provide quantum advantage. Read our full write-up of this new tool here.
November 14, 2022 – News Brief
German Government Funding Construction of a German Quantum Cloud Service for German Industry
The German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (in German: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz or BMWK) will be spending tens of millions of euros to support a three year program to construct a quantum cloud service. Organizations involved in this effort include QMWare, cloud specialist IONOS, the University of Stuttgart, and the Fraunhofer FOKUS research institute. This is one of many quantum computing programs that the BMWK is funding and they are expected to spend a total of 740 Million euros overall. Once this quantum cloud has been put in place, various end users will test out applications in application areas including telecommunications, logistics, finance, automotive and energy. Additional information can be found in a press release available here.
November 14, 2022
Dell Technologies Partners with IonQ to Provide Hybrid Classical/Quantum Solutions
Dell Technologies has introduced new software called the Qiskit Dell Runtime that runs on their PowerEdge classical servers to provide a hybrid/classical quantum solution. This development is an extension of a capability that we reported on a year ago where Dell had interfaced their quantum software with IonQ’s quantum simulator which they called vQPU software. The biggest change with this year’s announcement is that the software can now interface with IonQ real Aria processor over the internet. Click here for more.
November 14, 2022 – News Brief
IonQ Announces their Third Quarter Financial Results
IonQ announced their third quarter financial results and indicated they are on-track for meeting their previous full year 2022 estimates for both revenue and bookings. The revenue in Q3 was $2.8 million, up from the previous $2.6 million they reported in Q2. Bookings in Q3 were $16.4 million which includes the $13.4 million dollar contract that we reported on in September. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $13.4 million which is an increase from Q2’s $11.6 million. And cash, cash equivalents, and investment at the end of the quarter was $555.8 million, a decrease from $571.3 million at the end of Q2. In other news, the company announced that it has improved the performance of their Aria processor from #AQ 23 to #AQ 25 Algorithmic Qubits (AQ) . The AQ performance benchmark is used internally by IonQ for measuring their performance, but has not yet been picked up by any other hardware manufacturer so it is hard to make comparisons. The company also announced a partnership with Dell Technologies to offer end users a hybrid quantum platform based upon Dell PowerEdge servers along with Dell software that can integrate with and utilize IonQ’s quantum computers for hybrid classical/quantum computations. Additional information about IonQ’s third quarter results can be seen in their earning announcement located here.
November 11, 2022
Who’s News: Management Changes at Rigetti, ColdQuanta, Q-CTRL, Diraq, and the UK’s NQCC
There are several management changes announced in the past few weeks. Rigetti will have a change of CEO. ColdQuanta has appointed new Vice Presidents of Quantum Development, Goverment Programs, Sales & Business Development for Quantum Information Platforms. ColdQuanta has also appointed a new Chief Technology Office and added a new Board member. Q-CTRL has announced a Head of Marketing and a Head of Finance. Diraq has announced a new non-executive Director and Chairman. And finally, the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) has appointed a Chief Scientist. Click here for our report on all these management changes.
November 10, 2022
D-Wave Announces Q3 Earnings Showing Continued Growth
D-Wave announced earnings showing $1.7 million of revenue in Q3 and described other advancements at the company on the product, technology customer, and commercial fronts. Click here for our report on their latest earning announcement.
November 10, 2022 – News Brief
Xanadu Raises $100 Million USD in Series C Venture Financing
Xanadu’s Series C financing follows a Series B venture investment in May 2021 that was also for $100 million bringing the total amount invested so far to $250 million with a company valuation of $1 billion. The round was led by Georgian with additional participation from Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Forward Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Capricorn, BDC Capital, and Tim Draper. The funding will be used to help advance the company’s progress towards their goal of building a fault-tolerant and error-corrected quantum computer that can scale up to one million qubits. A near term goal in this effort will be to build an initial module validating Xanadu’s fault-tolerant quantum computing architecture. Additional information is available in a press release from Xanadu which can be accessed here.
November 9, 2022
IBM Announces 433 Qubit Osprey Processor, Several Additional Advancements, and a 100×100 Challenge
At its annual IBM Quantum Summit today, IBM made several announcements of new advancements in its quantum technology and their quantum network. These include announcement of the 433 Osprey processor, several new software capabilities, an update on IBM Quantum System Two, and a new 100×100 challenge (100 qubits with 100 levels) they intend to demonstrate by 2024. Some of these had been previously mentioned in roadmaps, technical papers, press releases and other venues, but more details on these have been provided today. Click here for our full writeup about these announcements.
November 4, 2022 – News Brief
Quix Quantum Opens an Office in Amsterdam
Quix Quantum, a startup developing photonic quantum processors formed in 2019, announced the opening of a new office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This new office complements their original office in Enschede, Netherlands near the University of Twente and another office in Ulm, Germany working on DLR’s Quantum Computing Initiative. A key motivation for the company is to make it easier to establish strategic relationships and access talent at other organizations in the Amsterdam area working on quantum technology including QuSoft, The University of Amsterdam, the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, and Quantum.Amsterdam. For more, you can view a news release from Quix announcing the opening that you can see here.
November 3, 2022 – News Brief
Quandela Partners with French Energy Company EDF for Simulating Hydroelectric Dam Structures
The companies will research using Quandela’s photonic quantum computers to perform numerical simulations of hydroelectric dam deformation. The goal is the improve the accuracy and speed of these calculations while reducing energy consumption. This will leverage Quandela’s expertise in using quantum approaches to solve differential equations and developing algorithms. EDF is a very large French state-owned energy company with sales of €84.5 billion ($83B USD) in 2021 and over 150,000 employees. They have been active in investigated uses of quantum technology since 2018, one of the first French companies to do so. Quandela, founded in 2017 and located near Paris, France, is developing quantum photonic processors and has also create its own photonic computer programming and simulation software package called Perceval. Additional information about this partnership is available in a news release posted on the Quandela website here.
November 3, 2022
D-Wave Introduces New Features in Its Constrained Quadratic Model (CQM) Hybrid Solver
D-Wave has been providing a tool for some time that they call a Solver that can allow an end user to specific a problem at a higher level of abstraction and then have the software automatically reformulate the problem so it can run on the physical machine. They have been regularly been improving this tool with new features over the past few years. Now D-Wave has introduced addition new features in their Constrained Quadratic Model (CQM) Hybrid Solver that provides for specifying weighted constraints and for implementing a presolver that runs on a classical computer to reduce the size and simplify the model before it is sent to the quantum annealer. Click here for our full article that reports on these features.
November 2, 2022
Universal Quantum’s Portion of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Awards Amount to €67 Million ($66M USD)
Last week we reported that the German Aerospace Center (DLR) had awarded €208.5 Million ($208M USD) in contracts for five different projects related to ion trap based quantum computers. Universal Quantum has just issued a press release with additional details about their portion of the program which indicates their portion will amount to €67 Million or about 32% of the total. Their activity will consist of two sub-projects. The first is to build a single chip quantum computer and the second one will be to connect two or more of these chips together to create a multi-chip quantum computer with 100 qubits. These projects will occur over a four year period. Click here for more.
November 2, 2022 – News Brief
eleQtron Receives New Venture Capital Funding
eleQtron, based in Siegen, Germany, is developing an ion trap quantum processor based upon a concept they call MAGIC (Magnetic Gradient Induced Coupling). They received some additional funding from venture organizations Earlybird and Siegerlandfonds. As we reported last week, they are also participating in a program sponsored by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to research how to network individual chips to create a universal quantum computing architecture. It is reported that the total amount of new funds the company will receive will total €50 Million ($50M USD). However, it is not fully clear whether all of this amount will come from the venture capital investments or whether this number also includes funding from the DLR project. Additional information is available in an article posted at Tech.eu that can be accessed here.
November 1, 2022
ColdQuanta Lands $110 Million in Series B Funding
ColdQuanta, a quantum startup headquartered in Boulder, Colorado with additional offices in Chicago, Illinois, Madison, Wisconsin, and Oxford, UK has received a $110 million Series B funding to advance and commercialize its technology. The funding round was led by LCP Quantum with additional participation from In-Q-Tel, Sumitomo Corporation of America, Breakthrough Victoria, BOKA Group Holdings I LP and existing investors Foundry Group, Global Frontier Investments, Maverick Ventures and others. Click here for more.
November 1, 2022
QuEra Launches Their 256 Qubit Analog Quantum Processor on AWS
QuEra is now making their 256 qubit analog quantum processor, named Aquila, available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The companies had announced their intent on doing this last November. This would be one of the first neutral atom based processors available via one of the public cloud vendors. It will be available for ten hours per week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The processor can be programmed with the AWS Braket SDK, and soon QuEra’s own Bloqade software platform based upon the Julia programming language will also support Aquila. Click here for the rest of the article.
October 31, 2022
Zapata Enters the Quantum Cybersecurity Market
Zapata has introduced a new service offering to help customers achieve quantum resilience. Their Quantum Resilience Solution consists of three parts: Assessment, Testing, and Verification which will help customers prepare and validate their quantum resistant activities. Note that Zapata won’t actually implement the code upgrades themselves, but they will partner with consultants, the end user, or other IT service providers who may be more familiar with the end users’ classical computing infrastructure. But the services provided by Zapata could be a big help to those implementers. Click here to learn more about the background behind this new offering.
October 29, 2022 – News Brief
Quantum World Congress is Holding a $25,000 Quantum Startup Pitch Competition
The Quantum World Congress is holding a pitch competition for startup or emerging company that’s utilizing quantum science and technology to develop solutions for the life sciences, biotech, or healthcare sector. Applicants have until November 9th at 11:59 PM Eastern Time to submit a pitch deck that has information on their company including a business summary, the value proposition, a go-to-market strategy and other information that will make the case why their company should be selected as a finalist. Approximately five to seven finalists will be invited to make the pitch live on November 29th at the Quantum World Congress event in Washington, D.C. A winner will be selected from the finalists to receive the $25,000 prize. For additional information and an application form, you can visit a web page about the pitch competition on the Quantum World Congress website here.
October 29, 2022
German Aerospace Center (DLR) Awards €208.5 Million ($208M USD) in Contracts for Ion Trap Based Quantum Computer Development
The German Aerospace Center ( (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt or DLR) has awarded contracts for five sub-projects to eleQtron, NXP® Semiconductors Germany, Parity Quantum Computing Germany, QUDORA Technologies and Universal Quantum Deutschland for development of ion trap processors over the next four years. The goal will be to have quantum processors that have at least 50 qubits along with creation of modular technology that can be scale up modular systems to thousands of qubits. Click here for our full article with more details about these awards.
October 29, 2022 – News Brief
Breakthrough Victoria Will Invest A$29 Million ($18.2M USD) in ColdQuanta to Establish a New Quantum Computing Technology Facility in Melbourne
Breakthrough Victoria is a funding agency for the Australian state of Victoria that funds R&D. The funds provided to ColdQuanta will be used to establish the ColdQuanta-Swinburne Quantum Technology Centre at Swinburne University in Melbourne. The investment will fund the building of an advanced manufacturing capability for certain quantum components including glass cells used in the cold atom technology and creation of an education and training center to prepare the future quantum workforce. Additional information about this investment and the establishment of this new quantum technology center is available in a news release on the Breakthrough Victoria website here.
October 28, 2022
Multiverse Computing and Mila to Advance AI and Machine Learning
Multiverse Computing and Mila just announced a partnership designed advance artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) using quantum computing and quantum-inspired methods. The partnership will also focus on developing new leaders in the high-tech fields of quantum computing and ML. Mila represents a global hub of scientific advancement in Montreal with approximately 1000 researchers specializing in AI and ML. Click here for the rest of the article.
October 27, 2022
Aliro Launches AliroNet for Building Entanglement-Based Quantum Networks
Aliro, a Boston based quantum networking company, has launched a suite of software and services that will allow customers to configure, simulate, and build a quantum network. Although Aliro doesn’t manufacture quantum networking hardware themselves they will work with hardware partners to help their customers select, test, and configure appropriate hardware for their needs. Click here for the full article.
October 22, 2022
D-Wave Offerings Are Now Available through the AWS Marketplace
Although access to D-Wave’s quantum annealer has been available on the Amazon Braket service for some time, D-Wave is now making available access to their Leap quantum cloud service and additional services through another facility at AWS called the AWS Marketplace. The Leap quantum cloud services will be moved from Amazon Braket to the AWS Marketplace soon and Amazon Braket users will be redirected to the AWS Marketplace to use this service. The change will allow D-Wave to offer additional services to AWS Marketplace customers and simplify procurement, provisioning, and governance for these customers. Click here for our article with more details about this change.
October 21, 2022
Rolls-Royce and Classiq Partner on Quantum Approach to Computational Fluid Design
Classiq and Rolls-Royce are partnering to design novel computational fluid dynamics (CFD) algorithms. CFD is widely used in automotive design, wherever there’s an interaction of a component with gas, fluid, or even solid. CFD enhances the process of component design and assembly, as well as the development of the whole vehicle. Specifically, it improves performance, enables design efficiency to minimize aerodynamic losses, optimizes design for better aerodynamic response and enables designers to tackle the aesthetics of vehicles, given any existing constraints. Click here for more.
October 20, 2022
Amazon Braket Adds Two New Software Capabilities Called Amazon Pulse and OQpy (OpenQASM3 to Python
Amazon has added new capabilities to allow users to program some of the quantum processors on Amazon Braket at the pulse level in addition to the gate level. They have also create an open-source library designed to make it easy to generate OpenQASM 3 programs in Python. Read about these new enhancements to Amazon Braket in our full article here.
October 20, 2022
VW and Xanadu Create Quantum Battery Materials Simulation Effort
The basic goal of the multi-year joint effort will be to improve quantum algorithm performance, reduce computational cost and accelerate VW’s use of quantum computers focusing on batteries and battery materials. The resulting materials are expected to be not just more cost effective, but also safer and lighter. In addition, the program will also investigate other materials discovery computational problems, where quantum computing can have a major impact. Click here for more.
October 19, 2022 – News Brief
PsiQuantum Receives a $22.5 Million Contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory
PsiQuantum will work with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to co-develop quantum photonic chips that will be manufactured at GlobalFoundries’ semiconductor fab in Malta, N.Y. This contract was enabled by the $25 million funding that was provided by the government earlier this year to help fund manufacturing investments at GlobalFoundries for developing and building components for PsiQuantum’s photonic quantum computer. For more about this new contract, you can view the press release provided by PsiQuantum here. You can also review our previous article titled A Closer Look at PsiQuantum here that provides more details about their technology. Our previous article that describes the $25 million funding for manufacturing investments at GlobalFoundries can be found here.
October 18, 2022 – News Brief
Quantinuum and Mitsui Partner to Expand Quantum Computing Usage in the Japan and Asia-Pacific Markets
Seeking to expand its business in Asia, Quantinuum has signed an agreement with Mitsui to help develop the market as well as collaborate on potential applications for quantum computing in Japan and the Asia-Pacific. The Mitsui Group is one of the largest keiretsu in Japan with FY2022 revenue of $96.4 billion USD, offices in 63 countries and regions, and over 44,000 employees on a consolidated basis. Mitsui will help promote Quantinuum’s offerings to external customer as well as potentially use quantum technology internally within their 16 business units. Product areas this partnership will focus on include computational chemistry, quantum cybersecurity, optimization applications, and quantum natural language processing and artificial intelligence. For more about this partnership announcement, you can see a press release posted on the Quantinuum website here.
October 17, 2022 – News Brief
Quandela to Use CEA-Leti to Manufacture Its Photonic Chips
French start-up Quandela announced that it will use the Information Technology Laboratory of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA-Leti) to manufacture its photonic chips to help provide them with a more controllable domestic supply chain. The first chips from this partnership are expected to be available in early 2023. Quandela is working on a 6-qubit NISQ processor which they intend to make available as a web service through OVHCloud by the end of the year. Also, Quandela has a photonic computer programming and simulation software platform named Perceval which allows users to simulate, model, and test their software that enables users to immediately use the hardware when it becomes available. Quandela announcement of their agreement with CEA-Leti to serve as a manufacturing partners can be accessed here.
October 15, 2022 – News Brief
QuantrolOx Secures €10.5 Million ($10.2M USD) in Funding
The funding is being provided to QuantrolOx by the European Innovation Council which is providing the funds as an upfront grant of €2.5 million ($2.4M USD) and an additional €8 million ($7.8M USD) as a matching equity investment when the QuantrolOx receives an equivalent investment from an outside source. QuantrolOx is developing automated machine learning based control software that will tune, stabilize, and optimize qubits for better performance. The software can monitor and adjust dozens of different parameters every microsecond and is intended to be technology agnostic and applicable to all types of quantum technologies. The company is expected to formally launch its product in 2023. Additional information is available in a LinkedIn posting from QuantrolOx that you can see here.
October 11, 2022 – News Brief
European Infrastructure for Rydberg Quantum Computing (EuRyQa) Project Launches with a Budget of €5 Million ($4.86M USD)
The EuRyQA project is being funded over 3 years by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program to establish Rydberg quantum processors as a leading platform for scalable quantum computing in Europe. The project will have eleven partners from seven countries. It will be led by the University of Strasbourg with other participants including PASQAL, QM Technologies, the University of Stuttgart, Qruise GmbH, EURICE GmbH, the University of Amsterdam, the Technical University of Eindhoven, Idryma Technologias Kai Erevnas, Associação Portuguese Quantum Institute, and Università degli Studi di Padova. The team will work to combine four complementary European Rydberg platforms and provide a common quantum computing stack for Rydberg atoms including a cloud service, solutions to concrete computational problems, and key technologies for fault-tolerant quantum computing with Rydberg qubits. Additional information about this project is available on the Quantum.Amsterdam website here.
Quantum Xchange Partners with Warpcom to Provide Quantum-Safe Networking to Customers in Portugal and Spain
Quantum Xchange is a Maryland based startup that provides a crypto-diverse management platform called Phio TX (Trusted Xchange). Phio TX uses a variety of techniques that enable its users to implement quantum safe networking without bearing a risk of having a single point of failure. Quantum Xchange has agreed to work with Warpcom, an Iberian technology integrator for networking and infrastructure with offices in Portugal and Spain, to promote the Phio TX technology to its clients in those countries. Warpcom was acquired in November 2021 by Evolutio, a Spanish IT firm headquarters in Madrid, and now operates as a subsidiary of the parent company. Additional details about this partnership are available in a press release provided by Quantum Xchange that can be seen here.
October 8, 2022 – News Brief
The EuroHPC JU Selects Six European Sites for Quantum Computer Installation with a Total Budget of €100 Million ($97M USD)
In March of this year, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) issued a call for proposals for European supercomputing centers to host the installation of a quantum computer at their facility. They have now announced a selection of six sites in the countries of Czechia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Poland that will have quantum computers installed and available by the second half of 2023. The total budget for the project will be €100 Million ($97M USD) with half of the funds contributed by the European Union through the EuroHPC JU and the other half contributed by the host countries. The project is intended to only incorporate European technology and leverage various European investments in quantum through EU-funded quantum initiatives, national research programs, and private investments. More information about this program can be found in the official announcement from the European Union here and related announced from the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre in Czechia here and the Leibniz Super-computing Centre (LRZ) in Germany here.
October 7, 2022 – News Brief
Zurich Instruments Launches LabOneQ, a Software Framework for Controlling Zurich Instruments’ Hardware
The LabOneQ software from Zurich Instruments allows users to design and visualize complex quantum experiments with a Python based programming environment. The software makes it easier and faster for an end user to generate and upload waveforms, synchronize pulses between multiple instruments, visualize the results, verify experimental sequences and pulses before execution and track the results and calibration data. It can handle anything from a single qubit to 100 qubits or more. The software works to enable high duty cycles by minimizing communications overhead, optimizing control instructions, pipelining, queuing experiments, and utilizing automation. Additional information about LabOneQ can be seen in a web page for the product located here, a software user manual that can be found here. and a video here.
October 7, 2022 – News Brief
Multiverse, Protiviti, and Ally Financial Release Study on Using Quantum Annealers for Financial Index Tracking
The purpose of the study performed by Multiverse, Protiviti, and Ally Financial was to construct a portfolio of assets that would track the returns of the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500 indexes with a much smaller subset of assets. The research was able to accomplish this by reducing the number of assets in the new index tracking portfolios by 4x and 10x respectively. The advantage of limited the number assets, known as cardinality constraints, is that it makes the portfolio much easier to manage. The team also reported that they were able to reduce the risk profile of the target index by a factor of up to 2x. The team was able to achieve these results using D-Wave LEAP Hybrid solver. Future work in this area will be to include additional factors in the analysis such as dividend reinvestments, transaction costs for re-balancing and including other types of assets for building advanced ETF products. Additional information is available in a news release posted on the Multiverse website here as well as a technical paper posted on arXiv here.
October 6, 2022 – News Brief
QCI and VIPC Partner to Use Quantum for Determining Optimal Flight Trajectories for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
Calculating an optimal flight trajectory for a UAV turns out to be a complex optimization problem. But Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) and the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC) will be working on this problem to see if a quantum approach can provide a valuable solution. Their plan is to take sensor, airspace information of other aircraft, desired destinations for the craft, and micro-weather data collected by the Virginia Flight Information Exchange (VA-FIX) in order to calculate the optimal time, speed, cost, and route for the UAV to reach its destinations. The project will be using QCI’s Entropy Quantum Computing (EQC) photonics-based quantum processor along with their Qatalyst optimization software for this project. Additional information about this project is available in a news release provided by QCI that is available here.
October 6, 2022
Qunnect Receives $8 Million in Series A Funding
The funding was led by Airbus Ventures with additional participation from Quantonation, SandboxAQ, NY Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, and Motus Ventures. Qunnect, based in Brooklyn, New York, provides several different components for use in the quantum internet. In September of last year, they were the first company to sell a Quantum Memory which is a key device needed for extending the distance of a quantum communications link. Click here for more.
October 5, 2022 – News Brief
Intel Describes Its Second Generation Silicon Spin Test Chip
At the 2022 Silicon Quantum Electronics Workshop in Orford, Québec, Canada, Intel described its second generation silicon spin test chip and some results in testing it. In the chip business yield is everything and Intel announced that they achieved a yield rate of about 95% across the 300 millimeter wafer in a recent test. You might ask whether yield is really critical in a quantum processor chip. After all, these are not like microprocessors that are made in the millions per week. A company only needs to obtain a handful of chips when it wants to build up its next quantum computer. But high yield is also a good indicator of process uniformity, which is critical for maintaining high qubit quality metrics for all the qubits on the chip. Intel also described usage of their new cryoprober which was able to characterize the performance of hundreds of devices on the 300 mm wafer at a temperature of 1.7 Kelvin within a 24 hour period. The company indicated they will continue using these tools along with other standard semiconductor process control tools such as statistical process control to work on continued improvements in qubit quality. You can access Intel’s announcement about this development on their website here.
October 4, 2022
Q-CTRL Launches Black Opal Enterprise to Help Enterprises Get Their Employees Quantum Ready
Q-CTRL has launched a new version of its Black Opal quantum learning platform that is specifically designed for use by enterprises that wants to educate groups of their employees on quantum technology. It includes additional administrative features that allow enterprises to implement a seat licensing structure, track their progress, award co-branded certificates of completion, and obtain dedicated customer support Click here for more details about this new version.
October 2, 2022
Who’s News: Management Updates at Quantinuum, Classiq, Aliro Quantum, and Zapata Computing
Quantinuum has a new Chief Commercial Officer, Classiq has a new Vice-President of Business Development, Aliro Quantum has hired its first Chief Marketing Officer, and Zapata Computing has added a new advisor. Click here for more information about these management additions.
September 30, 2022 – News Brief
Stony Brook University Professor Wins $400,000 Grant to Study Quantum Witnesses
The two-year $400,000 grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to fund research examining the power of quantum witnesses. The award is part of a $15 million initiative from the DOE called Exploratory Research for Extreme‐Scale Science. The principal investigator for this project will be Supartha Podder, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at Stony Brook University. In the context of this project a witness is a piece of data that certifies the answer to a computation. This research can potentially help understand when and why quantum computation outperforms traditional classical computation. Additional information about this award is available in a news release issued by Stony Brook University and posted on their website here.
September 30, 2022 – News Brief
IonQ Wins a $13.4 Million Contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory
The IonQ contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is for providing access to IonQ’s trapped ion quantum processor as well as the development of quantum algorithms and applications. The AFRL has been researching quantum technology for some time and currently has labs located in New York, Ohio, and New Mexico that research various areas associated with the quantum technology. You can view IonQ’s announcement of this award on their website here.
September 29, 2022 – News Brief
Atom Computing Officially Opens a New R&D Center in Boulder, Colorado
With the help of Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Atom Computing officially opened its new R&D center in Boulder, Colorado. Although the company has a facility in Berkeley, California, it decided to add to its development capabilities with an additional facility in Colorado so they could tap into the talent and resources at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) as well as JILA, formerly known as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, a joint institute of the university and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The new facility will have room to contain multiple quantum processors and the company expects to invest over $100 million in the Colorado operation over the next three years. They currently have a prototype 100 qubit quantum processor codenamed Phoenix and are now working on the development of a second generation system. Additional information about this new facility is available in a news release provided by Atom Computing that can be accessed here.
September 29, 2022 – News Brief
GSMA Announces a Post-Quantum Telco Network Taskforce with IBM and Vodafone as Initial Members
GSMA is a worldwide industry trade group with about 1200 members of mobile cellular network operators. As one might expect, the topic of quantum safe communication is becoming a topic of concern for them with approximately 100 Zettabytes (or 1023 bytes) of information transmitted each year and revenue in the neighborhood of $2 trillion worldwide. Data security is a priority for them so any failures that would result from a quantum computer breaking the encryption would be very serious matter. In order to mitigate the potential risks of quantum computing they have created a news Post-Quantum Telco Network Taskforce to define requirements, identify dependencies and create the roadmap to implement quantum-safe networking. IBM and Vodafone will be the initial members of this taskforce with other members of GSMA invited to join. In addition, providers of quantum safe cybersecurity products who are not members of GSMA will have opportunities to get involved with this task force to help the task force identify the best technologies that can help them achieve a quantum safe goal. More information about this news post-quantum telco network taskforce is available in a news release posted on the IBM website here as well as a blog post provided by IBM located here.
September 28, 2022 – News Brief
OQC to Install a Quantum Processor in a Cyxtera Colocaton Data Center
Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) and Cyxtera, a leading company providing data center colocation and interconnection services that has than 60 data centers in over 30 markets, have agreed to partner and install one of OQC”s superconducting processors in Cyxtera’s Reading Data Center Campus LHR3. This will enable Cyxtera’s customers to utilize OQC’s processor and work with classical computers located in that facility. This could potentially improve latency times and allow Cyxtera’s customers direct access to our OQC’s quantum computer without going through a public cloud. Since the classical and quantum processors will be colocated rather than in separate locations, this can substantially improve program runtime by reducing the transit delays of shuttling data back and forth multiple times. Frequently exchanging data between the classical and quantum systems is a common requirement for some of the popular hybrid classical/quantum algorithms in use today. More information about this collaboration is available in a news release posted on the Cyxtera website here.
September 28, 2022
Intel Releases Their Own Quantum SDK for Beta Test and They are Funding Universities to Develop Curricula Using It
Intel has been developing its own quantum SDK based upon the C++ programming language that uses the LLVM intermediate level description from classical computing as a base. It is optimized to work with hybrid classical/quantum variational algorithms and will work with other components of Intel’s quantum stack including Intel’s high performance quantum simulators and, eventually, Intel’s spin-qubit based quantum processor. They are providing funding to universities wishing to develop curricula using this SDK so that students can start developing applications with it. Click here for our full article describing this announcement from Intel.
September 27, 2022
Quantinuum Announces Reaching Quantum Volume of 8192, an Additional Type of Two-Qubit Gate, and 500,000 Downloads of TKET
Quantinuum has announced a new record for the Quantum Volume metric reaching 8192 from the previous 4096. This is helped by an addtional type of two-qubit gate called the “Arbitrary Angle Two-Qubit Gate”. They also announced that they have now reached over 500,000 downloads of the TKET quantum software. Click here for additional details.
September 26, 2022 – News Brief
Brightcom and Qulabz to Set Up a Quantum Innovation Lab in Hyderabad, India
Brightcom is a digital marketing company headquartered in India with offices in 25 locations and 2020 revenue of about $340 Million USD. Qulabz is a quantum startup with offices in New Jersey and Hyderabad with a vision to create a quantum future by using quantum principles for engineering solutions to extremely complex problems in computing, communications, sensing, chemistry, cryptography, imaging and mechanics. The two organizations have set up a joint venture called the “Brightcom Qulabz Innovation Labs” to perform quantum research and innovations in both software and hardware domains. Additional details are available in a new release located here.
September 24, 2022 – News Brief
2023 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Awarded to Four Quantum Scientists
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation sponsored by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki awards yearly prices of $3 Million for each of several different categories for fundamental discoveries in their respective field. The 2023 award for the fundamental physics category was awarded to Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, David Deutsch, and Peter W. Shor for their foundational work in the field of quantum information. These gentlemen are very well known within the quantum community for their ground-breaking discoveries. Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard created the BB84 protocol initiating the field of quantum cryptography. David Deutsch defined the quantum version of a Turing machine and designed the first quantum algorithm that surpasses the best equivalent classical algorithm. And Peter Shor invented Shor’s algorithm to factor large numbers exponentially faster than any classical algorithm which was the first algorithm to demonstrate potential usefulness of quantum computing in the future. A press release announcing the winners of the Breakthrough Prizes can be seen here and a short video about the achievements of these physicists can be viewed here.
September 24, 2022 – News Brief
The Chicago Quantum Exchange Adds Six New Partners
Five new corporate partners and one non-profit partner have joined the Chicago Quantum Exchange to work with them to advance the science of quantum technology and develop practical applications. The five corporate partners include State Farm, QuEra Computing Inc., PsiQuantum, qBraid, and QuantCAD LLC. And the non-profit partners is Le Lab Quantique (LLQ), a Paris-based think tank. They will join over 30 other partner organizations from corporate, non-profit, international, and regional sectors. A news release from the Chicago Quantum Exchange announcing the new partners can be seen here.
September 24, 2022
South Korea and the U.S. Open Several Centers to Collaborate on Quantum Research
The Korea-U.S. Science Cooperation Center (KUSCO) announced five different centers to foster collaboration between U.S. and Korean universities on various quantum research projects. Click here for information about these centers and the topics that these universities will research.
September 24, 2022 – News Brief
Quix Quantum Secures a €14 ($13.57M USD) Million Contract to Deliver a 64 Qubit Photonic Quantum Computer
Quix will work with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) over a four year program to install 8- and 64-qubit quantum computers based on photonics at the DLR Innovation Center in Ulm, Germany. Using the Quix processors, DLR research their use for such problems as post-quantum cryptography, quantum machine learning, planning optimization for satellite operations, and simulation of chemical redox reactions for the development of battery systems. Previously, the largest photonics chip that Quix had delivered was a 20 mode low-loss, multimode, fully reconfigurable interferometers for quantum computing that operate at room temperature. Additional information about this contract is available in a news release provided by Quix and located here.
September 22, 2022 – News Brief
Novo Nordisk Foundation Awards $200 Million (1.5 Billion Danish Krone) to Develop Quantum Systems to Solve Life Science Problems
The project will be led by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and is scheduled to run for the next 12 years. The first seven of those years will focus on developing materials and hardware to build qubits to ascertain the best quantum platform to use. The last five of those years is expected to involve scaling up the chosen quantum platform and show it can solve relevant life science problems which cannot be accomplished using classical computers. The end goal is to create Denmark’s first fully functional generally applicable quantum computer by 2034. The program will involve many other participants from industry and academia with key participants expected to include researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Aarhus University, and University of Toronto. Additional information about this program is available in a press release issued by the Novo Nordisk Foundation which located here as well as another press release provided by the Niels Bohr Institute which can be accessed here.
September 21, 2022 – News Brief
Quantum Computing Inc. Announces a Subscription Services for Its Dirac Entropy Quantum Computer
We had previously reported in May that Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) had acquired quantum photonic startup QPhoton and we also reported in July that Quantum Computing Inc. had used the QPhoton device to optimize vehicle sensor placement for a BMW/AWS Quantum Computing Challenge. The company has now announced that it will make the processor, which it now calls the Dirac 1 Entropy Quantum Computing (EQC) system, publicly available over the web through a subscription service. The device is designed to solve optimization problems and works with QCI’s Qatalyst™ software to provide a complete solution. The company will offer several different plans for access that ranges from an introductory program that provides 10 hours of access to a plan that offers full dedicated access to a Dirac 1 machine. The Dirac 1 Entropy Quantum Computer works differently from the gate model machines we see today from the other vendors. The company indicates the devices uses backaction with the environment to evolve the quantum system into a coherence-free sub-space. You can view a video with additional explanation here. The company also indicated that in Q4 of this year, they will launch an even larger processor dubbed Dirac 2 that will be able to solve even larger and more complex optimization problems. Additional information about the processor and QCI’s new subscription plan is available in a news release announcement the launch of the subscription plan here as well as a web page that provides additional information about the Dirac 1 subscription services here.
September 20, 2022 – News Brief
Classiq Adds Another $13 Million to Its Series B Round
Classiq, an Israeli quantum software company, has expanded its Series B funding round to $49 million from the previous $36 million that we reported on last May. The investor for this latest portion is Awz Ventures, a Canadian-Israeli venture capital firm. The company will be using the funds to open new offices in Japan and Europe as well as doubling the size of the R&D team to about 100 people by 2023. The company will also be expanding its customer collaborations. Previously, they had disclosed partnerships with Amazon, ColdQuanta, Nvidia, The Fraunhofer Institute, and the Chicago Quantum Exchange. Additional information about this new funding is available in a press release provided by the company and available here.
September 19, 2022 – News Brief
Zyvex Announces an Extremely Precise Lithography System for Use in Fabricating Quantum Processor Chips
Zyvex new product, called ZyvexLitho1TM uses scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to achieve line widths of 0.768 nanometers which is much better than the DUV or EUV systems used in the most advanced semiconductor fabs. It uses a technology called Hydrogen Depassivation Lithography which is a form of Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) that achieves atomic resolution. Uses of this machine include making extreme precise structures for quantum dot based qubits in order to achieve the highest qubit quality. The product can be used in other non-quantum related applications such as constructing nanopore membranes used in biomedical and other chemical separation technologies. The drawback of the product is that throughput is quite low. So although it might be suitable for the manufacture of low volume quantum processor chips, it would not be a good solution right now for high volume consumer electronics products. A press release from Zyvex announcing the product can be seen here and blog article that explains the physics of the device can be found on the Zyvex website here.
September 18, 2022 – News Brief
Quantum Delta NL Awards €7.87 Million ($7.86M USD) as Part of Its “Quantum SME Call”
Quantum Delta NL issued a call to quantum SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) for proposals to receive funding for innovative projects related to quantum technology. Those selected would receive grants ranging from €500,000 to €2 million. They received 18 proposals and selected 10 of them for funding. The companies receiving the funding include Appsilon Enterprise BV, Delft Circuits, Fermioniq, Leiden Space Imaging, Onnes Technologies BV, Orange Quantum Systems, Qblox, QphoX, QuantWare and a quantum cryptography lab. Quantum Delta NL intends on making this Quantum SME call an annual process in its efforts to help encourage quantum technology leadership in the Netherlands. Additional information about these awards and the companies that received them can be seen in a news release provided by Quantum Delta NL here.
September 17, 2022 – News Brief
QuantWare Awarded €1.1 Million ($1.1M USD) to Develop Develop Superconducting Quantum Processors with Novel Materials
The funding has been provided to QuantWare by Quantum Delta NL to find novel materials for a superconducting quantum processor that will help improve coherence times. The goal will be to improve coherence times by an order of magnitude. QuantWare has a unique business model in that they create quantum processor chips that they sell to universities and other organizations who want to build up their own quantum processors. It is similar to how Intel or AMD sell microprocessor chips to OEMs who then use the microprocessor chips as components in their own computers. QuantWare’s goal is to enable their customers to build their own QPUs for 1/10th the cost of purchasing a full quantum system externally. More information about this grant to QuantWare is available in a news release on the QuantWare website here.
September 17, 2022 – News Brief
Kipu Quantum Secures €3 Million ($3M USD) in Venture Funding
The round was co-led by Quantonation, Entrada Ventures, and First Momentum Ventures. Kipu Quantum is based in Karlsruhe and Berlin, Germany and is working to provide utilize application-specific quantum computing solutions to provide commercial advantages to customers as soon as possible. They have developed novel algorithmic compression methods along with efforts to create co-design hardware that will slash the number of qubits needed for commercial useful solutions in the NISQ era. The co-founders of Kipu Quantum include Chief Visionary Officer Professor Enrique Solano, Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Tobias Grab, and CEO Dr. Daniel Volz. They will be commercializing ideas that members of the team have been developing during two decades of quantum research. Additional information about Kipu Quantum and this investment is available in a new release posted on the Quantonation website here.
September 17, 2022
Final Deadline for Qubit by Qubit “Intro to Quantum Computing” Course is September 23, 2022
Qubit by Qubit is an initiative by The Coding School with a goal to make quantum computing education available to anyone who wants to learn. They are offering both a one or a two semester course targeted for students at the high school level and above to teach them about quantum computing. Semester 1 from September 18 – December 17, 2022 will cover the Fundamentals of Quantum Computing while Semester 2 will continue the lessons through April 16, 2023 and will cover Applications of Quantum Computing, going into Quantum Finance, Quantum Chemistry, and more. Students will have the option of signing up for just Semester 1 or for both Semesters 1 and 2. The final deadline for applying is September 23, 2022 at 12 noon Eastern time. For additional information about the program and links to where you can register for the course, click here.
September 17, 2022 – News Brief
Moody’s Sets Up a Quantum Analytics Group for the Financial Services Industry
One of the more significant applications for quantum computing will be within the financial industry to create financial models for credit ratings, risk, portfolio optimization, credit analysis, fraud detection and many other things. Moody’s, with over 2021 revenue of over $6 billion and over 13 thousand employees, is one of the largest service firms that provides such information to the financial and other industries. As part of their efforts, the Moody’s Analytics subsidiary has set up a new quantum computing team under the direction of Sergio Gago Huerta, Managing Director of Moody’s Quantum Computing, to explore how quantum computing can be leveraged for their business. The initial use cases they will explore include proprietary models for economic capital, risk modelling, and portfolio management in banking, insurance. The will also work on buy-side solutions the company has in the market. Moody’s already has powerful classical computing models for these use cases, but by working to improve their implementation through the use of quantum computing Moody’s is seeking to provide solutions which are even faster and more accurate with greater capabilities. Additional information about the activities of this new Moody’s Analytics Quantum Computing Team is available here.
September 16, 2022
Rigetti Announces Detailed Product Roadmap and New Partnerships
In a comprehensive Investor Day presentation, Rigetti Computing described a detailed product roadmap that covers all aspects of their activities and announced new and enhanced partnerships that will help them achieve their goal of quantum advantage. Click here for all the details.
September 14, 2022 – News Brief
Aegiq / Fraunhofer CAP Receive £500,000 ($577K USD) Grant to Develop a Deployable Quantum Light Source
The grant was provided by Innovate UK, part of UK Research & Innovation, to create a high-purity single-photon output rate with an output rate exceeding currently available commercial lasers. Potential applications include high-speed quantum key distribution, quantum information processing, and serving as a brighter source for imaging or sensing applications. AegiQ is a spin-off from The University of Sheffield that was founded in 2019. The Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP) in Glasgow, Scotland is a world-leading center in the field of applied laser research and development. Additional information about this grant can be found here.
September 14, 2022 – News Brief
SandboxAQ Acquires Cryptosense
Cryptosense is a company headquartered in Paris, France in 2013 that has a leading platform for cryptography lifecycle management. It provides an automated means for organizations to get full visibility into their cryptography during development and cryptography assets in production. It also helps IT organizations to resolve compliance issues and resolve vulnerabilities. SandboxAQ has acquired the company for an undisclosed amount as part of their Strategic Investment Program. The Cryptosense technology will complement SandboxAQ’s own Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) solutions and allow the combined team to deploy solutions at a faster pace and an expanded customer base. This is the second deal resulting from SandboxAQ’s Strategic Investment program. In August, the company announced its participation in a Series A investment round with evolutionQ, another quantum cybersecurity firm based in Waterloo, Canada. You can access SandboxAQ’s news release announcing the acquisition of Cryptosense here.
September 13, 2022 – News Brief
AWS and Harvard to Collaborate on Quantum Networking Research
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will provide funding to the Harvard Quantum Initiative for a three year program of faculty-led research into key technologies used in quantum networking including quantum memories, integrated photonics, and quantum materials. Part of the funding will also be used to upgrade the quantum fabrication capabilities of the NSF-supported Center for Nanoscale Systems at Harvard. Associated with these efforts at Harvard, AWS will also be researching quantum memory technology at the newly formed AWS Center for Quantum Networking. Quantum memories are a particularly important component for quantum repeaters which are needed to enable the long distance transmission of photonic qubits. In a separate grant, additional support from the AWS Generation Q Fund will also be provided to Harvard to help train post-baccalaureates, graduate students, postdocs with a particular focus on scientists and engineers from underrepresented backgrounds. More information about the collaboration between AWS and Harvard is available in a press release provided by AWS located here and another press release provided by Harvard which can be seen here.
September 10, 2022
NSA Releases Commercial National Security Algorithm (CNSA) Suite 2.0 and Recommended Timelines for Converting to Quantum Resistant Algorithms
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) publishes a Commercial National Security (CNSA) document which specifies which encryption algorithms should be used for owners, operators and vendors to use when working with classified information critical to military and intelligence activities. Up until now, their original document, which they now call CNSA 1.0, used classical encryption algorithms which were not necessarily quantum resistant. Now that NIST has made their initial Round 3 PQC selections, the NSA has updated this document to what they call CNSA 2.0 along with guidance on what algorithms to use along with an expected time table for conversion. Click here to read our full article that describes more about NSA’s announcement of the CNSA 2.0 suite.
September 10, 2022 – News Brief
Team Led by Wave Photonics Receives £500,000 ($580K USD) Award for Packaging of Quantum Photonic Integrated Circuits
The award was made by the Innovate UK project to a team led by startup Wave Photonics with partners Alter Technology TUV NORD UK, Senko Advanced Components, University of Southampton, and the University of Bristol. The project will last for one year as the team works to create design templates and simplify the development of packaging for Quantum Photonic Integrated Circuits (QPICs). QPICs can be manufactured using semiconductor manufacturing techniques which can allow them to be made reliably at high volumes. However, up until now the packaging of these QPI devices has not been standardized so customization of the packaging is required which slows down the development time and increases the cost. So this project, named QPICPAC, aims to change that with a design template based approach. The project already has a trial customer, Quantum Dice, a UK startup that is developing a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) using QPIC technology. Additional information about this award is available in a post that you can find here.
September 9, 2022
IBM Demonstrates Successful Cool Down of Their Goldeneye Supersized Dilution Refrigerator
In September 2020, IBM announced it was developing a large sized dilution refrigerator codenamed Goldeneye that they may use for future quantum processors. This fridge is roughly 10 feet x 6 feet in size and designed to provide an experimental volume for cooling of 1.7 cubic meters (about 60 cubic feet). In comparison, the current generation of dilution refrigerators available from commercial vendors contains about 0.4 to 0.7 cubic meters (about 14-24 cubic feet) for the devices. IBM has just announced that they have built a Goldeneye and have cooled it down to 25 millikelvin and successful installed and ran one of their quantum processor chips inside of it. Click here for more.
September 8, 2022 – News Brief
Northeastern University Receives a $3.5 Million Grant to Establish the Experiential Quantum Advancement Laboratories (EQUAL)
The award was provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Collaborative Research and Development Matching Grant program managed by the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech). It will be used to create the Experiential Quantum Advancement Laboratories (EQUAL) at Northeastern University’s Innovation Campus in Burlington, Massachusetts. This laboratory will focus on researching quantum sensors and related technologies and they will seek partnerships with other researchers in industry, government, and academia. The project will also help provide workforce training and will help Northeastern’s efforts to offer new Ph.D. and Master’s degree programs in Quantum Information Science and Engineering, as well as to create Quantum Information Science certificate and retraining programs. Additional information about this grant and quantum activity at Northeastern University, you can view a news release here.
September 8, 2022 – News Brief
Unitary Fund Announces a Quantum Open Source Software Survey
The Unitary Fund team is announcing its first Quantum Open Source Software (QOSS) survey to get a better understanding of the quantum computing community’s needs, background and to improve their products/services/events and educational material. The survey will cover information on demographics, experience, community, research, tech stacks and encourage specific feedback. The Unitary Fund is also releasing a related survey understand the state ofDiversity & Inclusion of the Quantum Open Source Software (QOSS) community. They are encouraging everyone who codes or wants to code for and with quantum computing technologies to fill out both of these surveys so they can get a better idea of the collective opinion of these issues within the quantum community. The deadline for filling out this survey is September 23, 2022. After analysis of the input data, they will be publishing and sharing the anonymized and aggregated results with the entire quantum community. The link for filling out the Quantum Open Source survey is here and the link for filling out the Diversity & Inclusion survey is here. Additional information is available in an announcement blog they have posted on the Unitary Fund website here.
September 7, 2022
NIST Issues Call for Additional PQC Digital Signature Algorithms
As mentioned in our article last month about NIST’ Round 3 selection for Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms, they are now formally issuing a call for additional PQC algorithms to use for digital signatures. NIST is concerned that the three digital signature algorithms selected in Round 3 do not provide enough diversity for protection against possible weaknesses that might be found in the future. Their primary interest is to identify general-purpose signature schemes that are not based on structured lattices. And for certain applications, such as certificate transparency, NIST may also be interested in signature schemes that have short signatures and fast verification. Read our full article here to learn more about this new Call for Proposals from NIST.
September 6, 2022
Archer Signs Up GlobalFoundries as a Manufacturing Partner
Archer Materials has announced they will be working with GlobalFoundries, a leading semiconductor manufacturing foundry. GlobalFoundries will be fabricating Archer’s 12CQ quantum chip technology with a goal of achieving high volume chip fabrication. Archer is the fourth quantum company that GlobalFoundries is supporting. Archer has been developing their chip technology at the University of Sydney Research & Prototype Foundry Core Research Facility at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub. Click here for more.
September 3, 2022
Who’s News: Management Updates at Q-CTRL, Zapata, Kipu Quantum, and the U.S. National Quantum Coordination Office
Both Q-CTRL and Zapata have hired new Heads of Product at their companies, Kipu Quantum has a new CEO, and the U.S. National Quantum Coordination Office has a new Deputy Director. Click here to see the details.
September 2, 2022 – News Brief
Qphox Signs A Second Deal to Network Superconducting Processors; Now with IQM
We reported in June that Qphox is collaborating with QuantWare to provide a way to network muiltiple superconducting processor chips together. They call their technology a Quantum Modem™, a quantum transducer that will couple microwave and optical photons through a mechanical intermediary resonator. This allows qubit information to be routed through a room temperature fiber optic cable to a separate quantum processing chip. Qphox has now announced a partnership with Finnish company IQM, one of the leading quantum processor startups in Europe. Several companies are pursuing various forms of multiprocessing in order to scale up the number of qubits needed to provide quantum advantage solutions for commercially relevant problems. Besides QuantWare and IQM, other superconducting based processor companies that are pursuing this approach include IBM and Rigetti. This approach can be particularly helpful for superconducting based processors because there are limits in the number of qubits that can be contained within a single dilution refrigerator due to constraints on heat load and wiring. Additional information about the partnership between Qphox and IQM is available in a news release that can be accessed on the IQM website here.
August 31, 2022 – News Brief
Multiverse and Objectivity Partner to Bring Quantum Solutions to Companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Multiverse is a leading quantum software company headquartered in San Sebastian, Spain that provides quantum and quantum-inspired solutions to companies in the finance, mobility, energy, life sciences and advanced manufacturing verticals. Objectivity Ltd. is a UK headquartered company with over 1000 employees and additional branches in Poland, Germany, Mauritius that delivers custom software solutions, digital transformation, and IT consulting. The two companies will be collaborating to bring quantum solutions such as Multiverse’s Singularity platform to Objectivity’s clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. They will be initially planning to focus on industry sectors including finance, manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, retail and others. Additional information is available in a press release provided by Multiverse and available here.
August 30, 2022 – News Brief
Finland and Singapore Agree to Collaborate on Quantum Technology
The National Quantum Office of Singapore, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, IQM Quantum Computers and CSC – IT Center for Science (Finland) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreeing to work together to explore and promote research and development in quantum technologies. This cooperation will encompass areas including technology hardware components, algorithms and applications, quantum-accelerated high-performance computing and both terrestrial and satellite quantum communications. A press release with additional information about this agreement is available on the VTT website here.
August 29, 2022 – News Brief
$100,000 Quantum & Photonics Pitch Competition for Early Stage Startups
Qubits Ventures and Luminate Accelerator are sponsoring an online pitch competition for early stage quantum and photonics startups. The winner will receive an investment of at least $100,000 from a group of investors including the Luminate Accelerator and Qubits Ventures. And runners up will receive a fellowship to the Quantum & Photonics Accelerator managed by the Founder Institute. Startup companies that have raised less than $2.5 million in funding are eligible to apply for the competition before the application deadline of September 11, 2022. Seven finalists will be selected for the live online pitch competition to be held on September 20, 2022. The event will stream on Zoom and audience members can watch the presentations live by RSVPing to the event by registering at https://fi.co/e/284003/pr. The rules and selection criteria for the competition, as well as an application form, is available on a webpage for the competition here.
August 28, 2022 – News Brief
Multiverse Computing Introduces a New Version of their Singularity Portfolio Optimization Software
We reported in August 2021 about a new software program from Multiverse Computing called Singularity. This program has an interesting characteristic in that it is implemented as an Excel plug-in that make it easy and quick for an inexperienced end user to try without requiring them to learn a lot about quantum computing. They have now released an update to this program that includes Singularity Portfolio Optimization v1.2 that supports a variety of modes including a Multiverse Hybrid mode, a D-Wave Leap Hybrid mode, and a pure classical solver. The program also can accept a variety of constraints while performing the optimizations including investor’s level of risk aversion, resolution of asset allocation, minimum and maximum allowable investment per asset, and others. The portfolio optimizer uses Multiverse’s hybrid solver for its core algorithms and the company indicates it can produce results competitive to classical solvers in a shorter period of time. The program is hardware agnostic and can be used with a variety of different quantum processors as well as quantum-inspired and classical configurations. Additional information about this new version of Singularity is available in a news release posted on the Multiverse website here.
August 27, 2022
UCLA Receives $1.8 Million in Funding from the NSF to Research a New Type of Qubit
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been researching a new type of molecular based qubit called a quantum functional group. This consists of molecular fragments which which can be attached to molecules or surfaces to form qubits. To help further this research, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded UCLA $1.8 million over a three year period to establish the Center for Advanced Molecular Architectures for Quantum Information Science to further study and refine this technology. Click here or the rest of the article.
August 25, 2022 – News Brief
Baidu Releases a New Quantum Computer and an Associated Quantum Cloud Services Platform
The quantum processor is named Qian Shi and implements 10 qubits using superconducting technology. They also indicated they are working on their next generation 36 qubit machine which will use tunable couplers for better isolation, cross-talk resistance and higher gate fidelities. To provide access to this and other quantum processors, Baidu also announced a cloud-based quantum operating environment called Liang Xi. Liang Xi includes a large collection of software modules including Quantum Leaf for providing quantum cloud access, Quanise for quantum control, QEP which is a quantum error correction toolkit, Paddle Quantum for quantum machine learning, and QNET which is a quantum networking toolkit. Interestingly, the Liang Xi platform is also able to provide an interface to other quantum processors in much the same way that Amazon Braket and Microsoft Azure can provide interfaces to several different quantum processors. The first outside processor they are supporting is a trapped ion quantum device developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Baidu has been working on quantum technology for over four years now and has already made 200 core patent applications on this technology. Additional information about Baidu’s quantum announcement can be found in a press release that can be accessed here as well as a webpage for Baidu’s quantum activities available here.
August 24, 2022 – News Brief
Riken and Fujitsu Team Up to Deliver Japan’s First Domestically Developed Quantum Computing
The companies established the RIKEN RQC-FUJITSU Collaboration Center in April 2021 to research quantum computers using superconducting technologies. They have a longer term goal of developing hardware and software within the next few years that will scale up to 1,000 qubits. Their more immediate goal is to provide a 64 qubit machine in the next Japanese fiscal year that starts in April 2023. Last year, IBM installed an IBM System One processor in Kawasaki City that is managed by 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. But that machine was designed at IBM’s Research Center in New York and shipped to Japan for installation. The Riken/Fujitsu machine is expected to be the first quantum processor designed and built within Japan. Additional information is available in an article posted on the Nikkei Asia website here and also a web page for the RIKEN RQC-FUJITSU Collaboration Center that can be found here.
August 23, 2022 – News Brief
Multiverse and BASF Partner to Research Quantum Use for Foreign Exchange Optimization
At first glance you might wonder why BASF, a large chemical company, would be working with Multiverse Computing to use quantum computing for a financial problem. But on closer look, you would see that BASF is a giant company with 2021 revenues of €78.6 billion ($78.2B USD) and operates in over 190 countries. So they need to convert currencies in their operations all the time and even small improvements in the exchange rates that they can achieve could be worth a lot of money. The team started a small 9 month research effort in January 2022 that focused only on the trading between Euros and U.S. dollars. It will be completed shortly and the team will issue a final technical report. Presumably, if this first trial is a success the companies will move on to subsequent phases that may incorporate more currencies or more complicated scenarios. For more about this project, you can read a press release issued by Multiverse that you can access here.
August 23, 2022
EeroQ Closes a $7.25 Million Seed Funding Round
EeroQ is a quantum hardware startup founded in 2017 that has recently moved its headquarters to Chicago. They are basing their qubits on a relatively unique technology called electrons-on-helium that was developed by scientists at Michigan State and Princeton University. Their belief is that the electrons-on-helium approach is superior to other qubit approaches because their qubits have longer coherence time, high speed, better connectivity, very high density, and compatibility with semiconductor CMOS processing. This funding round was led by B Capital’s Ascent Fund, with additional participation from V Capital, Alumni Ventures, Unbound Ventures, Calibrate Ventures and Red Cedar Ventures. For the full article about EeroQ and their funding round, click here.
August 19, 2022
Multiverse and IQM Partner to Create Application Specific Quantum Computers
The two companies have entered into partnership to tightly integrate IQM’s co-designed quantum processors with Multiverse’s Singularity SDK. When designing an application specific processor, one needs to have a deep understanding of the application and the specific algorithms that will be needed to provide solutions. Click here for more.
August 18, 2022 – News Brief
D-Wave Releases Its Second Quarter and First Half 2022 Financial Results
For its second quarter of fiscal 2022, D-Wave reported revenues of $1.371 million versus $1.137 million in the second quarter of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA showed a loss of $10.385 million versus a loss of $8.804 million in the same period a year ago and GAAP Net loss was $13.198 million versus a net loss of $4.668 million in 2021. The company reported that its customer base consists of 95 customers of which 55 are commercial organizations, representing an increase of 44% in the number of commercial organization customers in the past year. CEO Alan Baratz acknowledge during the earning calls certain headwinds stemming largely from the economic environment. To help adjust for these changes, they are increasing their budgets for go to market activities and moderating the budget growth in other areas. Despite this, he indicated that progress in their development programs has remained on-track or even been ahead of schedule in some cases. The company ended the quarter with about $10.5 million in cash, however they have announced an agreement that will provide them with a committed equity facility for up to $150 million. You can access a press release from D-Wave with their earnings announcement on their web page here and listen to their Q2 earnings call here.
August 17, 2022
IonQ Makes Its Aria Class Processor Available on Microsoft Azure
The IonQ Aria processor is their fifth generation processor which support approximate two dozen qubits or more using IonQ’s ion trap technology. They have been working on the development of this processor for over two years and first mentioned it in a press release in October 2020. Earlier this year, they have made it available for a private beta with select customers such as Hyundai Motors and GE Research, but now they have made it publicly available on the Microsoft Azure Quantum cloud. Click here for the rest of the article.
August 16, 2022
Multiverse and IKERLAN Partner to Research Quantum Computer Vision
Two companies based in Spain, Multiverse Computing and IKERLAN have partnered and released a paper describing how quantum computer vision can be used to detect defects in manufactured car pieces in a manufacturing production line. This would represent one of the first implementation of quantum computer vision for a relevant problem in a manufacturing production line. Although this research only created proofs-of concepts, it does point the way for utilization of quantum computing in manufacturing and quality control. Click here for more.
August 15, 2022
IonQ Announces Its Second Quarter Financial Results
IonQ announced its second quarter financial results for the period ending June 30, 2022. Revenue achieved was $2.6 million versus $93 thousand in the second quarter o 2021. EBITDA in Q2 2022 was a loss of $11.6 million versus $7.0 million in 2021 and the GAAP net loss was $1.7 million versus $10.0 million in Q2 2021. A significant account adjustment of $16 million due to a change in fair value of warrant liabilities account for much of the difference between the EBITDA and GAAP net loss numbers. The company still has $571 million in cash and investments available and indicated that they do not expect they will need any further financing before they reach profitability and positive cash flow. Click here for the rest of the article.
August 14, 2022
Who’s News: Management Changes at Rigetti, IonQ, JP Morgan Chase, and the Quantum Science Center at ORNL
Rigetti Computing has a new Chairperson for its Board of Directors. IonQ has added a new member of its Board of Directors. JP Morgan Chase has hired a new Global Head of Quantum Communications and Cryptograph. And the Quantum Science Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a new Director. Click here for the details on these management changes.
August 13, 2022 – News Brief
Q-CTRL Forms a New Quantum Sensing Division
Taking advantage of its expertise in quantum control Q-CTRL has now formed a new division to utilize this capability for quantum sensing applications. They will be focusing on applications such as quantum-enhanced navigation, persistent Earth observation, and magnetic anomaly detection. They are developing ultrasensitive software-defined quantum sensors that has near-term applications in many fields such as defense, navigation, minerals exploration, climate monitoring, and many others. Part of the challenge in these applications is to stabilize the signals when these devices are employed on moving platforms and Q-CTRL’s software is able to help this and filter out some of the clutter. Q-CTRL’s is already participating in teams that have won over $60 million in publicly disclosed quantum sensing contracts for programs involving advanced navigation and space qualified quantum sensors. For more information about Q-CTRL’s sensing activities you can read a press release posted on their website here and a web page for quantum sensing here.
August 12, 2022
Rigetti Computing Announces 2nd Quarter Financial Results
Rigetti announced its second quarter 2022 financial results with revenues of $2.1 million versus $1.5 million in the second quarter of 2021. Gross profit increased slightly to about $1.3 million from about $1.2 million in the prior year. Total GAAP Operating Expenses for the second quarter 2022 were $26.9 million versus $10.9 million in the same period a year ago due to increases in headcount and other expenses due to its transition to a public company. Adjust EBITDA loss was $15.1 million compared to $8.1 million in 2021. And Net GAAP loss was about the same at $10.0 million in Q2 2022 versus $10.1 million in Q2 2021 helped by accounting changes in fair value of certain items and other factors. Click here for the rest of the article describing additional progress at Rigetti in technology, customer engagements, and financing.
August 5, 2022
D-Wave and DPCM Complete Their Business Combination
The companies announced that their SPAC merger has been approved and that D-Wave will become a public company and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbols “QBTS” for the common stock and “QBTS WS” for the warrants. Members of the company’s management will ring the opening bell of the NYSE when trading starts on Monday, August 8. Click here for the rest of the article.
August 4, 2022 – News Brief
Rigetti Leading Team Awarded $2.9 Million from DARPA for Quantum Application Benchmarking
Rigetti is leading a team that also includes the University of Technology Sydney, Aalto University, and the University of Southern California which is receiving $2.9 million over a three year period subject to the achievement of certain milestones to develop benchmarks for quantum application performance on large-scale quantum computers. This is part of a larger program that DARPA announced in April 2021 which has also awarded contracts to three other teams earlier this year. The goal for this team will be to better understand how qubit errors occur, how the errors impact target applications, and what advances are needed in quantum hardware and software to achieve critical performance thresholds. The research will work to develop more detail models of qubit errors than exist with the simplified models available today as well as creating some of the first automated software tools for quantum performance analytics. Additional information about this award is available in a news release that can be accessed on the Rigetti website here.
August 3, 2022
Zurich Instruments Introduces a Parametric Amplifier Controller
It’s no secret that obtaining the lowest possible level of noise is critical in building quantum computers. And one of the key areas that engineers look at is the circuitry to readout the qubit state for measurement. For this reason, engineers designing superconducting or spin qubit quantum processors can often choose to use parametric amplifiers for amplifying the readout signals after they are detected. To facilitate the use of parametric amplifiers, Zurich Instruments has introduced their SHFPPC parametric amplifier controller that generates the necessary pump signals and active pump tone cancellation so that parametric amplification can be used. It is meant to work with their SHFQA Quantum Analyzer or the SHFQC Qubit Controller in superconducting or spin qubit based processors. Click here for our full article describing this new product announcement.
August 2, 2022
SandboxAQ Partners with evolutionQ on Quantum Safe Cybersecurity Products
Two companies working in the quantum cybersecurity area will be working together to promote each other’s products and leverage each other’s product and technical expertise. SandboxAQ will be able to offer evolutionQ’s BasejumpQDN product, a software package that manages QKD networks and optimizes them for the best efficiency, stability and latency. In return, evolutionQ will have the ability to integrate and distribute SandboxAQ’s Security Suite to its customers. In addition, SandboxAQ has made an investment in evolutionQ’s Series A funding, as part of SandboxAQ’s newly announced Strategic Investment Program. Click here for more.
August 1, 2022
NIST PQC Round 4 Candidate SIKE May Have Been Broken
We reported last month that NIST had selected four Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms for standardization in Round 3 and another four algorithms were selected for further analysis in Round 4. One of the algorithms selected for further study was SIKE (Supersingular Isogeny Key Encapsulation). SIKE is a key encapsulation (KEM) algorithm based upon a fundamentally different approach (Supersingular Isogeny) than the lattice-based Kyber algorithms chosen for KEM applications in Round 3. But now, researchers at KU Leuven have published a preliminary paper claiming they were able to find an efficient key recovery attack for SIKEp434, security level 1 using a single core processor in about one hour’s time with a program they call Magma. Click here for our full article that covers this in more detail.
July 31, 2022 – News Brief
University of Oklahoma Receives $1 Million Grant to Study Quantum Synchronization
The grant was made by the W. M. Keck Foundation to the University of Oklahoma’s Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Center for Quantum Research and Technology and will cover a three year period. The purpose will be to see how two neighboring cold atoms can use self-organization to be synchronized and achieve entanglement. This would be analogous to how many systems in the classical world, such as two neighboring pendulums, tend to get in sync. The researchers will try to different methods to get the atoms to synchronize. The first uses focused laser beams to create what is called an optical tweezer. And the second is to use what they call “quantum light” which is a stream of individual photons. Additional information about this grant and research is available in a news release located on the University of Oklahoma website here and also a grant abstract document available on the Keck Foundation website here.
July 30, 2022 – News Brief
Multiverse Collaborating with Bosch to Optimize Quality, Efficiency, and Performance in an Automotive Electronic Components Manufacturing Plant
Multiverse and Bosch will be working to create a quantum computing model of the machinery and process flow in at one of Bosch’s manufacturing plants in a process known as digital twin. This is a technique where a model of the activities in the facility will be created inside the computer and then enable various simulations and optimizations to be performed which can predict how the plant will perform under different scenarios. The companies will be using both customized quantum and quantum inspired algorithms developed by Multiverse in order to model an automotive electronic components plants located in Madrid, Spain. The companies hope to have first results of this pilot implementation by the end of the year with a goal of finding ways to enhance quality control, improve overall efficiencies, minimize waste, and lower energy usage. Bosch has a total of 240 manufacturing plants that include over 120,000 machines and 250,000 devices which are connected together to provide them with digital control and sensing to optimize performance. So a successful implementation of this digital twin concept could be extended to many more factories and provide Bosch with a significant productivity advantage in the future. A news release from Multiverse about this collaboration can be accessed on their website here.
July 29, 2022 – News Brief
Quandela Creates a Connector that Transpiles Gate-Based Programs So They Can Run on a Photonic Processor
A native quantum program for a photonic processor will be much different from a native gate-based program written for superconducting, ion trap, or other quantum modalities. On the other hand, there is already an extensive code back of quantum code that has been written in Qiskit and one other gate-based programming platforms that might benefit from being able to run on a photonic processor. Photonic technology may have some advantages over the other modes because these processors can run at room temperature and are less effected by the external environment which can harm the quality of the calculations. In order to provide another a path for users to try out a photonic processor, Quandela has introduced a “connector” that can take a program written in one of the third party quantum programming framework such as Qiskit and convert it to a photonic version that can run with Quadela’s open source Percival framework. Percival allows a user to design and simulate a photonic quantum program. Currently, Percival supports a photonic quantum simulator with a choice of four different algorithms as a backend. It will also support Quandela’s six qubit photonic processor slated to be available in the cloud in the autumn of 2022. For more information about the Percival framework and this new connector, you can view a LinkedIn posting here and also a web page for Percival here.
July 29, 2022
Quantum Computing Inc. Optimizes Vehicle Sensor Placement for BMW Using a New Type of Quantum Processor
The exercise was to perform an optimized placement of vehicle sensors as part of a Quantum Computing Challenge sponsored by BMW and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The problem required optimizing the placement of sensors on automobiles to reach the highest coverage at the minimum cost and the problem was configured as an optimization problem that included 3,854 variables and 500 constraints. But the breakthrough in this recent announcement is that QCI has provided a solution that provided similar coverage with only 15 sensors and 6 minutes of processor runtime. The key is a new type of quantum technology called Entropy Quantum Computing (EQC) that QCI obtained through their recent acquisition of Qphoton, a photonic quantum startup spun out of research by Dr. Yuping Huang from the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. Click here for the full article.
July 26, 2022 – News Brief
Origin Quantum Secures a 1 Billion Yuan ($148.2M USD) Series B Funding Round
Original Quantum is a startup headquartered in Hefei, China and founded in 2017 by a team from the quantum information laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The company is believe to have over 300 employees with about 75% of them R&D personnel. They have been developing quantum processors based upon both superconducting and spin qubit technologies and have also developed a quantum computing software framework called Qpanda2 to build, run and optimize quantum algorithms along with a quantum operating system called Origin Pilot. They received a Series A funding of over 100 Million Yuan ($15.4M USD) in January 2021 and have now closed a Series B round of almost 1 billion yuan. The round was led by the government backed Shenzhen Capital Group’s Hotland Investment Asset Management with additional participation from CITIC Securities and China International Capital Corporation (CICC), Bank of China Group Investment Limited (BOCGI) and several other Chinese investment institutions. Additional details can be seen in an article posted in an article by Deal street Asiahere.
July 25, 2022 – News Brief
University of Chicago Introduces a Certificate Program in Quantum Science, Networking, and Communications
The University of Chicago in association with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is offering a seven week on-line course to prepare prepares students to enter the quantum field with demonstrations, simulations, and technical hands-on experience. It is geared towards early-career individuals ten years or less of professional experience and a bachelor’s or graduate degree in the sciences such as physics, computer science, engineering, or math as well as mid-career professionals seeking to transition into the quantum field. The course will consist of on-line evening lectures twice a week for seven weeks and self-paced modules to teach the student the theoretical and practical fundamentals of quantum computing and communications. Topics covered in the course include linear algebra frameworks of quantum information and computing, programming quantum circuits, fundamental quantum communication protocol, and physical components used in quantum networks and quantum computing. The course will be held from October 04, 2022 to November 20, 2022. A full description of the course can be found here and also a registration page can be accessed here.
July 24, 2022 – News Brief
IonQ Establishes German and Israeli Subsidiaries
IonQ is looking to expand its geographical reach and has formed IonQ GmbH in Germany and IonQ Israel LTD in Israel in order to better support their commercial partners in Europe and Israel. Establishment of the subsidiaries will also help to embed IonQ within the European and Israeli quantum ecosystem. Noam Zakay, formerly the Program Director of IBM Quantum Europe, will be responsible for business development and sales of these subsidiaries. Additional information is available in a news release posted on the IonQ website here.
July 23, 2022
Continued Progress at Google AI Quantum: QVM, Cirq 1.0, Surface Code Scaling, and More Sycamore Qubits
Google held its Quantum Summer Symposium last week and described a number of new developments that shows they are continuing to progress in their quantum developments. For our full article describing their new software development of a Quantum Virtual Machine (QVM), their promotion of the Cirq SDK to version 1.0 which is its first formal release, a technical paper that shows progress in error correction as more complex codes are implemented, and a 72 qubit version of Sycamore, click here.
July 22, 2022
IQM Raises €128 Million ($130M USD) in Series A2 Funding
The funding was led by World Fund with additional participation from Bayern Kapital, EIC Fund, OurCrowd, QCI SPV, Tofino and Varma, as well as existing investors Maki.vc, Matadero QED, MIG Fonds, OpenOcean, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capital GmbH, Tencent, Tesi, and Vsquared. IQM is building superconducting based quantum processors, but has taken a different commercialization strategy than some of the other hardware providers. Click here for more.
July 22, 2022 – News Brief
Atlantic Quantum Secures $9 Million in Seed Round Funding
Atlantic Quantum is a spinout from the Engineering Quantum Systems (EQuS) group at MIT formed in early 2022. They are developing a scalable, fault tolerant quantum processor using superconducting technology. They assert that they have a superior approach for superconducting qubits because they are using a new type of noise-protected qubit that will improve coherence times by an order of magnitude along with a control scheme that will make scaling easier. Their seed round funding was led by The Engine with additional participation from Thomas Tull, Glasswing Ventures, Future Labs Capital, and E14. The company will use the funds to expand their technical teams in both Cambridge, Massachusetts and Gothenburg, Sweden. Additional information is available in a press release can be seen here.
July 21, 2022
Silex Completes Construction of Stage 3 Pilot Demonstration Facility to Produce Purified Silicon Wafers for Quantum
Natural Silicon consists of three isotopes including Si-28 (92.2%) which has zero nuclear spin, Si-29 (4.7%) which has a spin state of 1/2, and Si-30 (3.1%) which has also has zero spin. Natural silicon is perfectly fine for semiconductor processing since transistors are not sensitive to nuclear spins. But for spin qubits built on silicon wafers, the Si-29 is a problem since the 1/2 spin state will hurt the coherence times. So Australian company, Silex Systems Limited, has construction of a pilot demonstration facility that uses a SILEX laser isotope separation (LIS) platform technology to remove the Si-29 and provide customers with starting silicon that has no residual spin. Click here for our full article that describes this project.
July 20, 2022
QuEra Launches Bloqade, a Quantum Simulation Package for Neutral-Atom Quantum Architectures
Some of the neutral-atom quantum computers, notably those developed Pasqal and QuEra, support what is called an analog mode as well as the more familiar digital mode used in other technologies. Although the analog mode may not be as universally applicable as the digital mode might be, it is also less effected by noise issues. For some computational problems, analog mode may prove to be a better alternative to digital mode by providing an earlier means to reach quantum advantage. Commonly used quantum program platforms, such as Qiskit, Cirq, QDK, and others do not support simulating this mode so QuEra decided to create one. Click here for the rest of our article that describes this new Bloqade software for simulating analog mode on a neutral-atom processor.
July 20, 2022
BASF and PASQAL Collaborate to Predict Climate Change Impacts
BASF and PASQAL just announced that they will collaborate to explore how quantum computing will improve complex weather modeling applications used to simulate crop yield and growth stages and predict drift when applying crop protection products. Quantum technology will allow BASF to expand well beyond today’s classical HPC capabilities, prepare for climate change impact and help drive a more sustainable future. Click here for more.
July 19, 2022 – News Brief
BosonQ Psi Raises $525,000 in Pre-Seed Funding
BosonQ Psi is a company founded in India in 2020 that provides quantum powered cloud simulation software called BQPhy for enterprise customers in areas such as structural mechanics, thermal analysis, design optimization, fluid mechanics, acoustics analysis, electrochemistry analysis, electromagnetics analysis, multiphysics simulations, and digital twin simulations. The funding round was led by 3TO1 Capital with additional participation from India and US-based angel investors. The company has produced a prototype of their BQPhy software and plans on using the funds to further develop the software and release alpha and beta versions later in 2022. A press release announcing the pre-seed funding is available on the BosonQ website here.
July 18, 2022 – News Brief
D-Wave Collaborating with Mastercard to Find Quantum Solutions for Challenges in the Financial Services Industry
Mastercard is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York with over 24,000 employees and 2021 revenues exceeding $18.8 billion. They have a mission to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. And one of the tools they use to do this is to leverage advanced technology as much as possible to fulfill their mission. They have reached a multi-year strategic alliance agreement with D-Wave to explore the adoption of quantum computing solutions in their business. Some of the problems they will be working on may include things like developing more efficient settlement procedures for cross border payments, providing consumers with more choice and personalization, optimizing consumer rewards programs at an individual level, and finding more effective fraud detection algorithms that can result in earlier detection. They will be using D-Wave’s Leap™ quantum cloud service for creating and running the algorithms in real time. For more about this collaboration, you can view a news release provided by D-Wave that can be accessed here and also a short video that shows some of the potential applications here.
July 18, 2022
Israel Investing 100 Million NIS ($29M USD) to Establish the Israel Quantum Computing Center
The budget of 100 Million New Israeli Shekels (NIS) will cover a three year period and will be provided by the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA). The center will work with three different quantum technologies including superconducting, cold atoms, and photonic along with the associated software. Quantum Machines has been selected to lead the establishment of the center with their Quantum Machines’ Quantum Orchestration Platform being a key component in the project. Click here for our full article with more details about this project.
July 16, 2022
NIST Announces Collaborating Vendors in the Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography Project
Although NIST has announced their first selections of recommended algorithms to use for PQC, there is still a great amount of work to do. It is not a simple matter of unplugging the module that uses legacy RSA encryption and plugging in the new algorithms. So, the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has created a project to develop white papers, playbooks, demonstrations, and tools that can help other organizations implement their conversions to Post-Quantum-Cryptography (PQC) . They have recruited a consortium of partners who would help with this project and selected 12 partners to work with them under the terms of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). Click here to read our full article about this project and the list of selected partners.
July 15, 2022 – News Brief
D-Wave and DPCM Capital Reach One More Milestone on their Way to a SPAC Merger
As originally announced earlier this year, D-Wave intends on becoming a public company through the execution of a merger with DPCM, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). After the filing of an S-4 registration form that provides details of the business combination with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the form is reviewed by the SEC and deemed “Effective” if no issues are found. And this is what occurred earlier this week. The next step will be a shareholders vote which is now scheduled for August 2, 2022. Assuming the shareholders vote “FOR” the business combination, the merger will be completed and D-Wave will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The new ticker symbols will be QBTS for the common stock of the company and QBTS.WS for the warrants. Although the market environment for SPACs is not as strong as it once was, the deal has some unusual provisions because a 5 million share bonus pool has been created to reward DPCM shareholders who chose to become D-Wave stockholders rather than cashing in their shares. Additional information about the business combination and the declaration that the registration statement is effective can be found in a press release posted on the D-Wave website here and as well as all the filings the companies have provided to the SEC which can be accessed on the SEC website here.
July 14, 2022
Quantinuum Expands Relationship with JSR Corporation to Research Semiconductor Materials Using Quantum Computing
In this latest announcement, JSR will work with Quantinuum to model complex organic and inorganic semiconductor materials. They will be using Quantinuum’s recently announced InQuanto software to make accurate predictions of the physical properties of various materials, such as optical absorption and conductivity, and help identify new materials which could benefit future semiconductor devices. Click here to read our full article about this collaboration.
July 12, 2022
Quantum Source Secures $15 Million in Seed Round Funding to Develop Photonic Quantum Computer Technology that Can Scale to Millions of Qubits
Israel based Quantum Source has received $15 Million in venture funding from Grove Ventures, Pitango First, and Eclipse Ventures. They are developing technology for a large quantum computer based upon photonic technology. Quantum Source has a goal of developing photonic quantum computing technology that can be scaled to millions of qubits. There are other companies that are pursuing a similar strategy with photonic technology, but Quantum Source is using a unique technology that uses something called photon-atom gates that could potentially give them an advantage. Click here more.
July 12, 2022
Nvidia Introduces their QODA (Quantum-Optimized Device Architecture) Platform for Hybrid Quantum-Classical Computing
Nvidia continues to expand their offerings to the quantum community. Last year, they introduced their cuQuantum SDK for implementing high performance simulation of quantum programs using their Nvidia GPU’s. They have now announced a new platform called QODA (Quantum-Optimized Device Architecture) that also enables the development and compilation of quantum-classical programs for hybrid environments that include classical CPU’s, GPUs, and quantum QPU’s connected together. Click here for the rest of the article.
July 9, 2022
Two More Quantum Network Testbeds Being Installed in Quebec, Canada and The Netherlands
The first quantum network is being set up by Numana, a non-profit organization located in Quebec, Canada with a mission to be a catalyst for technological ecosystems, and Bell Canada. With a budget of $3.75 million CAD ($2.89M USD) it will be launched initially in Sherbrooke in early fall 2022 with subsequent extensions planned for Montreal and Quebec City. The second quantum network testbed will be established in The Netherlands by QuTech, Eurofiber and Juniper Networks. This network will connect several datacenter locations in The Netherlands. It will test out the integration of a quantum networking concept called MDI-QKD (Measurement Device Independent Quantum Key Distribution) with a commercial optical fiber network from Eurofiber along with routing, switching and security solutions from Juniper Networks. Click here to read out full article about these projects.
July 8, 2022 – News Brief
Oxford Ionics and Infineon Technologies Partner to Develop Microwave Controlled Trapped Ion Processors
While most of the companies pursuing trapped ion quantum processors that use lasers to control the qubits, Oxford Ionics is taking a different approach and using microwaves to control the gate operation. Their thinking it that using microwave control is easier to scale than multiple lasers while retaining the high gate fidelity levels inherent in ion trapped qubits. It also makes the processor chip more amenable to being built with semiconductor fabrication processes, which is where Infineon Technologies can help. By leveraging Infineon’s precision semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, they can create qubits which are predictable, repeatable, and reliable. The companies have aggressive development plans. The first Oxford Ionics device is slated to be available on the cloud by the end of 2022, with scaling to hundreds of qubits within the next two years. And within five years, Oxford Ionics vision to to have available supercomputing clusters networked together with a quantum networking technology providing computational capability of hundreds or thousands of qubits. For additional information, you can view the press release announcing the partnership located on the Infineon website here. You can also see additional information on web pages describing Infineon’s research into trapped ions and other quantum technology here and here.
July 7, 2022 – News Brief
Quantum Machines Partners with Toyota Tsusho for the Japan Market
Toyota Tsusho is a member of the Toyota Group, but they are involved in many more industries than just automobiles. The company operates in about 130 countries and has over 65,000. Major businesses include Metals, Global Parts & Logistics, Automotive, Machinery, Energy & Project, Chemicals & Electronics, Food & Consumer Services, and Africa. With such a wide portfolio they have many business that may be able to take advantage of quantum computing in the future. Quantum Machines partnership with them will enable Toyota Tsusho’s customers to build quantum capabilities and integrate quantum technology into their operation. As part of this partnership, Toyota Tsusho will be leveraging Quantum Machines’ Quantum Orchestration Platform (QOP) and other Quantum Machine’s products. For more information about this partnership, you can view a news release provided by Quantum Machines which is available here.
July 7, 2022 – News Brief
Quix Receives €5.5 Million ($5.6M USD) in Seed Round Funding
Quix new investors include PhotonDelta, FORWARD.one and Oost NL and the funding will be used for further development of Quix’s quantum photonic processor chips. They recent delivered a 20 qumode chip to the European project PHOQUSING and are currently working on having a full 20 qumode processor by early 2023. After that they plan on developing a 50 qumode processor. Quix’ photonic technology has very low optical losses and runs at room temperature, unlike other technologies that require expensive cryocoolers for low temperature operation. You can view Quix new release announcing this funding on their website here.
July 5, 2022 – News Brief
Oxford Quantum Circuits Secures £38 Million ($46M USD) in Series A Funding
Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) has raised this investment fund from Lansdowne Partners, The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), British Patient Capital and existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) and Oxford Investment Consultants (OIC). It is the largest Series A fund raise for any UK quantum company. The company will be using the funding to scale up its quantum processors and to expand internationally in the Asia-Pacific region. The company’s processors are based upon superconducting technology, but a distinguishing innovation is something they call Coaxmon. Coaxmon implements three dimensional circuits that can allows them to move control circuity off of the chip that contains the qubits. The company indicates this innovation will allow them to more easily scale the qubit count without degrading qubit quality and control. Earlier this year, OQC announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make their “Lucy” 8 qubit processor available on AWS’ Braket service. This makes them the first European company to do so and helps end UK end users who are concerned about data residency requirements. You can access OQC’s press release announcing this investment on their website here.
July 5, 2022
NIST Announces Round 3 Algorithms for Standardization and Round 4 Algorithms for Continued Study
In another important milestone for Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC), NIST has selected the first batch of algorithms from Round 3 that will be standardized and additional algorithms that will be analyzed during a Round 4 for potential additional standardization. The algorithms selected for standardization include CRYSTALS-KYBER for key-establishment and CRYSTALS-Dilithium, Falcon, SPHINCS+ for digital signatures. Additional algorithms Classic McEliece, Bike, HQC, and SIKE were selected for further study in Round 4. See our full article about this here.
July 2, 2022 – News Brief
QuSecure Wins SBIR Phase III Contract from the U.S. Government for Post-Quantum Cybersecurity
QuSecure, a company founded in 2019 and located in San Mateo, California, has secured a SBIR Phase III contract to implement their QuProtect post-quantum cryptographic solution to more than a dozen Federal Government agencies. Previously the company had started with a Phase I award from the U.S. Air Force in March 2020 to demonstrate their solution and a follow-on Phase II award in early 2022. This Phase III award will allow them to commercialize their technology. This Phase III award is the only one so far awarded by the U.S. government for post quantum cryptography and makes the company the Federal Government’s first PQC provider. The amount of the award has not been made public at this point but we estimate it is at least seven figures. Additional details can be found in a press release provided by QuSecure which you can find here.
July 2, 2022
Another Metropolitan Quantum Network Being Set Up in the Washington DC Area
A new metropolitan quantum network is being formed to join ones already started in Chicago, Long Island New York, and London. This one will be in the Washington DC area and will be called the Washington Metropolitan Quantum Network Research Consortium (DC-QNet). It will includes six U.S. government agencies located in the area and two additional affiliates outside of the region. Click here for our full article describing this new network.
July 2, 2022 – News Brief
qBraid Announces an Integration of their qBraid Lab SDK with Amazon Braket
The qBraid Lab SDK created by qBraid has three interesting features that can make it easier and faster for an end user to run a circuit on multiple platforms. The first is a “write-once-and-submit” function which can allow a user to create a circuit and submit it to multiple quantum hardware platforms and simulators without having to individually submit each one. The second is a circuit transpiler that supports over 20 different quantum hardware and simulation platforms that will take a circuit written in one quantum language and convert it so it can run on the many platforms including IBM Qiskit, Google Cirq, Xanadu Pennylane, Rigetti Pyquil and others. And the third feature is a mechanism to retrieve and manage the results of the multiple runs. The software is particularly useful for those who want to run a circuit on multiple platforms to compare the results of each platform. For example, Amazon Braket alone provides access to six different quantum computers and three different simulators and qBraid provides a pay-as-you-go model for accessing any of these. Additional information about the qBraid Lab, its integration with Amazon Braket, you can see a blog located on the qBraid website here.
July 1, 2022
NIST to Announce PQC Algorithm Selections on July 5, 2022
NIST has indicated that they will announce which of the Round 3 Post Quantum Cryptography algorithms they will select for standardization and also which of the alternatives will proceed on to Round 4 for analysis on July 5, 2022. This will represent a major milestone in a process that was started in late 2016. Click here for more.