PASQAL along with its partners at Sorbonne Université, Pixel Photonics GmbH (PIX), The Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), and Institut d’Optique Théorique et Appliquée (IOTA) have received a four year grant to research a new type of photonic quantum computer funded by the Pathfinder-2023 challenge grant of the European Innovation. Council. This photonic based processor would be completely different from the ones currently being developed by companies such as PsiQuantum and Xanadu because it leverages some of the technology, such as optical tweezers and neutral atoms, that PASQAL has developed for its standard neutral atom computers. It also works significantly different that PASQAL’s processors because a basic concept is that the information is stored as continuously variable quantum information in the photons as exotic states of light, rather than having the information stored in the state of the neutral atoms themselves. This is a long term research program and a processor based upon this new approach would not be expected for another 5 or 10 years. Additional information about this project is available in a news release provided by PASQAL that can be accessed here.
October 20, 2023