DARPA’s quantum moment
US research agency DARPA has announced several projects to develop quantum computers.
The agency is experienced with stimulating new areas of technology. Back in 2005 it launched the ‘Grand Challenge’ series of trials of driverless cars that has led directly to the autonomous driving systems that are set to come to the market in the next few years.
Now it is doing the same thing for quantum computers. The first stage of the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) aims to evaluate approaches to utility scale quantum computing for cost-effective commercialisation by 2033.
This involves describing a utility-scale quantum computer concept with a plausible path to realisation in the near term with US giants such as HP and IBM as well as US/UK pioneer Quantinuum.
One of the projects will see computing giant HP Enterprise working with spin qubit hardware from QoLab with error correction from 1Qbit and control systems from Quantum Machines
Other projects include European company Riverlane with Rigetti Computing and Diraq in Australia, while Quantum Motion in London, Oxford Ionics are providing spin qubits and trapped ion qubits and Alice & Bob in Paris is providing its cat qubit technology.
“We’ve invested heavily in solving the exact problems that turn a few qubits in a lab into the fault-tolerant systems needed to tackle real-world, intractable problems. This alignment of vision, progress, and proven expertise in silicon-based technology positions us to deliver meaningfully into DARPA’s quest for a utility-scale quantum computer,” said James Palles-Dimmock, CEO of Quantum Motion.
The list of the 20 companies in the first stage is below.
“During Stage B we’ll thoroughly review all aspects of their R&D plans to see if they can go the distance — not just meet next year’s milestones — and stand the test of trying to build a transformative technology on this kind of a timeline,” said Joe Altepeter, the QBI programme manager. “Those who make it through Stages A and B will enter the final portion of the program, Stage C, where a full-size IV&V team will conduct real-time, rigorous evaluation of the components, subsystems, and algorithms – everything that goes into building a fault-tolerant quantum computer for real. And we’ll do all these evaluations without slowing the companies down.”
PsiQuantum is already at Stage C as part of a programme that evolved into the QBI, and Photonic in Canada is working with Microsoft.
“Realising the full potential of quantum at scale will require our collective genius. We were pleased to learn that Photonic was selected for DARPA’s QBI Stage A, a rigorous recognition cementing Photonic’s unique, entanglement-first approach to distributed quantum computing,” said Krysta Svore, Technical Fellow, Advanced Quantum Development at Microsoft.
“This collaborative effort will allow us to design and test high-quality quantum components and system integration at all intermediate scales with accelerated pace and reduced cost,” said Dr. John Martinis, CTO of QoLab. “Our focus is on fabricating high-quality superconducting qubits leveraging the latest tools the semiconductor industry has to offer. We recognize the critical need for significant improvements in qubit fabrication, and we are dedicated to overcoming these challenges with our collaborators.”
Companies involved in Stage A of the DARPA QBI programme:
- 1Qbit – Vancouver, Canada
- Alice & Bob — Paris, France (superconducting cat qubits)
- Atlantic Quantum — Cambridge, Massachusetts (fluxonium qubits with co-located cryogenic controls)
- Atom Computing — Boulder, Colorado (scalable arrays of neutral atoms)
- Diraq — Sydney, Australia, (silicon CMOS spin qubits)
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise — Houston, Texas (superconducting qubits with advanced fabrication)
- IBM — Yorktown Heights, NY (quantum computing with modular superconducting processors)
- IonQ — College Park, Maryland (trapped-ion quantum computing)
- Nord Quantique — Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada (superconducting qubits with bosonic error correction)
- Oxford Ionics — Oxford, UK (trapped-ions)
- Photonic — Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (optically-linked silicon spin qubits)
- QoLab – Los Angeles, California
- Quantinuum — Broomfield, Colorado (trapped-ion quantum charged coupled device (QCCD) architecture)
- Quantum Machines – Israel
- Quantum Motion — London, UK (MOS-based silicon spin qubits)
- Rigetti Computing — Berkeley, California (superconducting tunable transmon qubits)
- Silicon Quantum Computing — Sydney, Australia (precision atom qubits in silicon)
- Xanadu — Toronto, Canada (photonic quantum computing)
- Applied Materials, Global Foundries and Synopsys are also part of projects.
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