Microsoft teams with Photonic in $100m quantum computing deal
After years of developing quantum software technology, Microsoft has joined a $100m investment in a quantum computing startup emerging from stealth.
Photonic in Canada is building one of the world’s first scalable, fault-tolerant and unified quantum computing and networking platforms based on photonically linked silicon spin qubits and is working closely with Microsoft.
The work builds on key research at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia led by Dr. Stephanie Simmons (above) who is now founder and Chief Quantum Officer of Photonic: Breakthrough for all-silicon photonic quantum computing
The $100m investment comes from the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), Microsoft Corporation, the UK government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), Inovia Capital, and Amadeus Capital Partners. The company has over 120 employees with a head office in Canada and has recently opened offices in the UK and US.
“Photonic is solving one of the central challenges for scalable quantum computing. By linking qubits with photons on a silicon-based architecture, the power of quantum processing can be unleashed across a distributed computing network with confidence that error correction is able to keep pace,” said Hermann Hauser, Co-founder and Venture Partner, Amadeus Capital Partners and a co-founder of ARM in the UK.
The agreement with Microsoft will provide an integrated roadmap of technologies and products that can enable reliable quantum communications over long distances, as well as access to Photonic’s quantum computing offering via Microsoft Azure Quantum Elements cloud service.
Microsoft is engineering a fault-tolerant quantum supercomputing ecosystem at scale on Azure to accelerate scientific exploration. Photonic has raised a total of $140 million USD in funding to date for its architecture than uses a spin qubit with a photon interface with ultralow-loss standard telecom equipment and wavelengths.
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“Our strategic collaboration with Microsoft will enable us together to accelerate the pursuit of quantum at scale,” said Simmons, who is also co-chair of Canada’s National Quantum Strategy Advisory Board. “Microsoft is the perfect partner for Photonic, enabling us to tap into global infrastructure, proven platforms, and the tremendous scale of Microsoft Azure.”
“There is an opportunity to ignite new capabilities across the quantum ecosystem extending beyond computing, such as networking and sensing, and unlocking applications and scientific discovery at scale across chemistry, materials science, metrology, communications, and many other fields. The capabilities we aim to deliver together with Photonic can enable this vision and bring about quantum’s impact far more quickly than otherwise possible,” said Jason Zander, Executive Vice President of Strategic Missions and Technologies at Microsoft.
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“Photonic’s game-changing approach to deliver on the decades-old promises of quantum computing continues to be fueled by our committed investors and best-in-class employees,” said Paul Terry, Chief Executive Officer of Photonic. “The support of such knowledgeable investors who believe in our work is a testament to our team, our technology, and the direction we’re headed in.”
“Since our initial investment in Photonic, the company has reached several major technical milestones related to developing secure quantum solutions, while establishing key commercial partnerships,” said Gordon Fyfe, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer at BCI. “As one of Photonic’s largest shareholders, BCI is excited to partner with its management team with the goal of developing one of the first fault-tolerant quantum computers in the world.”
“Quantum computing is real, and we believe that—within five years, significantly sooner than the widely accepted timeframe—we will be the first quantum computing company to offer a scalable, distributed, and fault-tolerant solution,” said Simmons. “These are the capabilities that must be delivered for quantum computing to be a relied upon across industries, and we believe that we have correctly identified the silicon T centre as the missing component needed to finally unlock the first credible path to impactful commercial quantum computing.”
Photonic links in silicon deliver quantum entanglement not only between qubits on the same chip but also among multiple quantum chips. Silicon-based qubits enjoy substantially greater microelectronic-style scalability than other types of qubits and the Photonic architecture achieves horizontal scaling with quantum error correction codes such as quantum LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) codes. These codes are known for extremely low physical to logical qubit overheads and fast and efficient hardware implementation.
“Ultimately, the breadth of problems to which quantum computing can offer a solution means it will have a tangible, meaningful impact on people all around the world,” said Dr. Paul Terry, CEO of Photonic. “We’re moving to large-scale, accessible quantum computers networked together to provide access to quantum services that will enable companies and governments to suddenly tackle problems that are, right now, beyond our capabilities because of the inescapable constraints of classical computing. It’s incredibly thrilling to be on the cusp of this inflection point in quantum computing and, more broadly, physics history.”
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Simmons is a Tier 2 Canada research chair in silicon quantum technologies and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research fellow in quantum information science while CEO Terry is a seasoned executive, entrepreneur, engineer, and angel investor who has founded or has been one of the founding employees at six successful companies in areas from big data systems to supercomputing, to IP services and telecom networking.
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