A leading player in the drive towards one million qubit scale quantum computers, PsiQuantum, has just announced a $10.8 million contract with the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). This contract continues a partnership between the two that first began in 2022. It will give AFRL access to PsiQuantum’s advanced quantum chip capabilities.
PsiQuantum will come up with designs and provide the hardware, including its Barium Titanate Electro-Optic phase shifters, which use world-leading materials. PsiQuantum is also going to supply quantum circuit components. Once the hardware has been designed, constructed, and tested, it will be delivered to AFRL, which will then find applications for it to help the Air Force.
Prof. Jeremy O’Brien, PsiQuantum Co-Founder and CEO, stated, “...we are grateful to continue our work with the lab to deliver our state-of-the-art quantum chip capabilities to the U.S. Air Force... As the global race for utility-scale quantum computing continues, this kind of collaboration could not be more important...”
Meanwhile, Dr. Michael Hayduk, Deputy Director at AFRL Information Directorate, noted, "...the expertise in silicon photonics, are proving to be a significant asset to our mission. We are not only observing promising developments in quantum information science but are also playing a proactive role in enhancing the national security landscape through these emerging capabilities."
PsiQuantum noted in its announcement that the contract wouldn’t have been possible if not for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY). It said that the pair were champions of the quantum computing industry in New York and had repeatedly secured funding for this program over a number of years.
PsiQuantum is notable for its approach to quantum computers. Unlike Microsoft, which is betting on topological qubits, PsiQuantum is leveraging photons as its qubits. Photonic quantum computing has several benefits. Firstly, photos do not interact with each other very much, meaning they’re less likely to lose their quantum properties. Another advantage is that photon qubits can operate at room temperature, whereas other types of qubits need to be cooled to very low temperatures.
Photons can also be manipulated very quickly for faster calculations, and they can use some existing infrastructure (fiber optic cables, for example), which could also be useful.
Microsoft recently said that it thinks its Majorana 1 chip can be scaled up to one million qubit scale in the coming years. PsiQuantum has also announced a chip called Omega, which contains all the components needed to reach one million qubit scale. These developments suggest that useful quantum computing will be well on the way in the coming years.
Source: Business Wire
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