Quantum - Friday, January 24, 2025: Commentary with Notable and Interesting News, Articles, and Papers
Can we all please get to work accelerating funding and innovation for top-quality quantum innovations? I think so, unless more non-technical factors get in our way.
Commentary and a selection of the most important recent news, articles, and papers about Quantum.
Today’s Brief Commentary
This last week has been the first of 2025 when the stock prices for public quantum companies have not dominated discussions. That topic is not going away, but we are beginning to see more announcements of solid technical results and interesting approaches again. We can also attribute this to the quantum news pipeline becoming depleted at the end of 2024 as marketers rushed to help their companies get press and attention in the media and conferences such as Q2B. This is normal and part of the bigger annual cycle and cadence for news. Academics-turned-founders should understand that marketing and communications can sometimes be harder than physics.
In my Research Note for The Futurum Group linked below, I describe how three quantum companies have gotten early-stage funding despite the stock market chaos and irrational exuberance. I do discuss the dramatic rise and crash and little rise and little crash and little rise … of the stocks, but I hope that’s all I need to say for a while.
Quantinuum is building a new facility in New Mexico. Will it become the quantum center of the US? Not if New York, Colorado, Maryland, or Illinois have anything to say about it. Unlike national borders, which have been tightened up for security and political bombast reasons, there will be no supply chain and workforce movement problems across the state boundaries. However, there are many reasons why people might want or not want to live in a particular area. State governors and legislatures should keep this in mind if they’re going to attract and retain the best talent. This will be especially true if CEOs enforce arbitrary back-to-the-office rules for jobs that can be done well remotely.
Don't forget to check out and bookmark my new sortable list of upcoming quantum technology conferences.
Earnings Announcements and Financial Dealings
Quantum Computing Early-Stage Startups, Still Finding Investors | The Futurum Group
Author: Dr. Bob Sutor
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025
Excerpt: During December 2024, the stock prices of public quantum computing companies IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and D-Wave Quantum rose dramatically by hundreds of percent despite the latter two publishing lackluster earnings results for the third quarter. Following remarks by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang saying that useful quantum computing was at least 15 to 30 years away, these stocks crashed. They each recovered somewhat, but how did this affect small quantum startups’ investment environment? Three such companies closed early-stage rounds despite the turmoil.
Quantum Computing
Hey! Where’s my qubit? | Sandia LabNews
https://www.sandia.gov/labnews/2025/01/09/hey-wheres-my-qubit/
Date: Thursday, January 9, 2025
Excerpt: But Sandia and the University of New Mexico have for the first time demonstrated a practical way to detect these “leakage errors” for neutral-atom platforms. This achievement removes a major roadblock for one branch of quantum computing, bringing scientists closer to realizing the technology’s full potential. Many experts believe quantum computers will help reveal truths about the universe that are impossible to glean with current technology.
Quantinuum Announces Plans to Build a New Quantum R&D Center in New Mexico, Anchoring the State’s Quantum Technology Revolution | Press Release
Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Commentary: Three words: “Sandia” and “Los Alamos.” New York State is also one of the top three photonic research and innovation areas in the US.
Excerpt: Quantinuum’s New Mexico location, anticipated to open later this year, is expected to create high-paying jobs and drive economic growth. Quantinuum has a longstanding history of collaboration with experts from the national laboratories in New Mexico, such as Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and universities, such as The University of New Mexico, in showcasing the performance of the company’s trapped ion quantum computing hardware. These partnerships have not only advanced the exploration of innovative applications and use cases, but have also been instrumental in supporting workforce development, education and various other efforts in the state and region.
ZuriQ is rewriting the rules of quantum computing by letting qubits fly
https://thenextweb.com/news/zuriq-quantum-computing-startup-funding
Author: Siôn Geschwindt
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025
Commentary: Pay attention to what ZuriQ is doing with trapped ions in addition to companies like Quantinuum, IonQ, Oxford Ionics, and Alpine Quantum Technologies. They all need to scale beyond a few dozen qubits per QPU.
Excerpt: The Swiss startup has found a way to allow qubits to move in all spatial directions like an aeroplane, instead of like cars on a road.
Lighting up the quantum computing horizon with Aurora | Xanadu
https://xanadu.ai/blog/lighting-up-the-quantum-computing-horizon-with-aurora
Date: Friday, January 24, 2025
Commentary: Interesting developments, and we will see how other photonic quantum computer like PsiQuantum and ORCA Computing respond. Whatever the paper (linked below) says about this prototype, it would have been nice for the blog entry to talk more about number of qubits, fidelities, and so forth.
Excerpt: Our paper detailing these demonstrations is entitled “Scaling and networking a modular photonic quantum computer.” We chose these words carefully to reflect the three major and closely related aspects of our architecture that Aurora substantially de-risks: scalability, networkability, and modularity. A truly useful quantum computer will require a very large number of physical qubits, necessitating an approach that includes a clear template for scaling up. Irrespective of the hardware approach, these qubits will not be able to fit into one contiguous system. Modularity is thus crucial: there must be a straightforward way to distribute the qubits amongst discrete modules that can be mass-manufactured independently. And modularity is useless without the ability to network the modules together in a way that enables entanglement to be shared across separate chips. Aurora is a powerful demonstration of all three, and allows us to set aside any doubts about these aspects of our photonic architecture.
Quantum Computing | Technical
Scaling and networking a modular photonic quantum computer | Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08406-9
Authors: Aghaee Rad, H.; Ainsworth, T.; Alexander, R. N.; Altieri, B.; Askarani, M. F.; Baby, R.; Banchi, L.; Baragiola, B. Q.; Bourassa, J. E.; ; ...; and Zhang, Y.
Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Excerpt: A proof-of-principle study reports a complete photonic quantum computer architecture that can, once appropriate component performance is achieved, deliver a universal and fault-tolerant quantum computer.
Using dynamic circuits to efficiently implement quantum states with long-range entanglement | IBM Quantum
https://www.ibm.com/quantum/blog/long-range-entanglement
Authors: Simone Cantori; Marcel Pfaffhauser; Elisa Bäumer; Fabio Scafirimuto; and Robert Davis
Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Commentary: This is a very good tutorial on some fascinating aspects of digital quantum circuits. Homework: why is there a focus on shallow-depth circuits for superconducting quantum computers?
Excerpt: The IBM researchers behind the PRX Quantum paper use dynamic circuits to generate long-range entanglement between qubits using shallow-depth quantum circuits. The methods they demonstrate in their paper serves to overcome the limited connectivity between qubits in superconducting quantum chips while also making the qubits more resilient against environmental noise.
Sovereign Initiatives
Canada Invests Over $52 Million in 107 Quantum Research Projects in Computing, Communications, and Beyond
Author: Cierra Choucair
Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Commentary: There's an old expression: “like spreading peanut butter on a waffle.” Where is the one effort to build a full-scale quantum computer that will provide Practical Quantum Advantage? I don't mean to pick on Canada since this approach is common, but putting a lot of money on fragmented programs will produce partial solutions.
Excerpt: Canada has announced over CA$74 million (approximately $52 million) in funding for 107 quantum science projects, in order to advance quantum technologies in areas like quantum computing, communications, encryption, materials, and sensing. The funding aligns with Canada’s National Quantum Strategy and includes partnerships with private, public, and international organizations.
Related Articles and Papers
AIM Photonics | New York
https://www.aimphotonics.com/
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025
Excerpt: We offer start-ups, designers and developers, and academic researchers access to a supporting infrastructure of services across the entire silicon photonics development cycle: design, simulation, fabrication, packaging, validation, and a path to volume manufacturing.
Disclosures
Bob Sutor is a former employee of IBM and Infleqtion and holds equity positions or stock options in each company. He is a Non-Executive Director for Nu Quantum.