Oxford Ionics has released a detailed development roadmap for its trapped-ion quantum computing platform, outlining a three-phase strategy—Foundation, Enterprise-grade, and Value at scale—designed to scale its systems from current deployments of 16–64 qubits to over 10,000 physical qubits, ultimately enabling millions of logical qubits. The roadmap is anchored not only on qubit count but on achieving industry-leading physical error rates of 10-4 and below, aiming to support practical, high-fidelity quantum computation in real-world applications.
In the Foundation phase, Oxford Ionics is deploying QPUs featuring 16–64 qubits with 99.99% fidelity and all-to-all connectivity, enabling complex algorithm execution without immediate error correction. The goal is to achieve Quantum Volume (QV) of 216, supporting research in early-stage quantum algorithms, defense, and materials science. These systems are already operational both in-house and at customer sites.
The Enterprise-grade phase introduces chips with 256+ qubits and error rates as low as 10-8 via quantum error correction (QEC). These systems add features such as mid-circuit measurement and feed-forward, unlocking QEC-ready architectures with over 16 logical qubits. With integrated photonics and scalable chip design, Oxford Ionics emphasizes ease of manufacturing and upgradability—Foundation systems can be upgraded to Enterprise-grade simply by swapping the QPU.
In the Value at Scale phase, the company targets scaling to over 10,000 physical qubits per chip by leveraging dense 2D chip architectures and its WISE (Wiring using Integrated Switching Electronics) multiplexing design. The system is expected to support 700+ logical qubits with minimal infrastructure change, positioning the platform for commercial quantum advantage across fields such as pharmaceuticals, finance, and advanced simulations.
Oxford Ionics is already commercializing its technology with customers such as the UK National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) and Germany’s Cyberagentur, and says its roadmap will unlock continuous value toward its long-term goal of building million-qubit quantum machines.
Read the full roadmap blog post here.
May 8, 2025
