Quantum News and Commentary | Friday, June 20, 2025
Networking in the UK next week, while companies have been error correcting left and right recently.
Today’s Brief Commentary:
I’m heading back to the UK this weekend for meetings in Cambridge and London. In particular, I’m attending the first meeting of the Quantum Datacenter Alliance on Thursday, June 26, at the Battersea Power Station, London. The partners in the alliance are Cisco Systems, NTT Data, Nu Quantum, Oxford Quantum Circuits, Qphox, Quantinuum, and QuEra.
From the registration website:
This inaugural in-person workshop will feature technical presentations and discussions from senior leadership and researchers from Cisco, Google, IBM, Infineon, MIT, NanoQT, NTT DATA, Nu Quantum, OQC, Photonic Inc, PsiQuantum, QphoX, Quantinuum, and QuEra. The focus of the workshop will be to share insights and explore topics such as scalability, distributed architectures, standardisation, and interoperability.
I’ve stated several times that my advice for those building quantum processing units is that they need to scale, correct, and network simultaneously. None of the first this, and then that stuff. Those who have a handful of amazingly good qubits will be outpaced by companies that can pull together partnerships or acquire others to do the whole job. Consolidation is going to accelerate, and the IonQ technical strategy reset, along with the subsequent acquisitions of Lightsynq and Oxford Ionics, is only the beginning.
To complement the networking focus next week, today’s links mainly concern quantum error correction. This is a very technical topic, so don’t feel bad if you can’t keep track of all the codes and interplay between software and hardware. Most of it is theoretical at this point or at least limited to small numbers of qubits. We are seeing good progress, but it’s anybody’s guess how many physical qubits versus logical qubits any given system will need once it’s built.
Don't forget to check out and bookmark our new sortable list of upcoming quantum technology conferences.
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Financial Dealings and Earnings Announcements
Pasqal Accelerates Momentum in Canada with New Quantum Factory and QPU Sale to Distriq, Quantum Innovation Zone | Pasqal
https://www.pasqal.com/newsroom/pasqal-accelerates-momentum-in-canada/
Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Excerpt: Pasqal, a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, today announced two significant milestones in its Canadian operations: the opening of its first North American quantum computer manufacturing facility in Sherbrooke, Québec, and the sale of a 100-qubit quantum processing unit (QPU) to Distriq, Quantum Innovation Zone.
This new factory is Pasqal’s second worldwide, following its flagship facility in France, and follows the company’s global industrialization and technology deployment strategy. The plant, located within the 50,000-square-foot Espace Quantique 1 building in Sherbrooke, will produce Pasqal’s next-generation quantum processors to serve growing demand in North America and is poised to position Québec as a key hub in the global quantum economy.
Quantum Computing Systems
SEEQC Announces Collaboration With IBM Under DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative
Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Excerpt: The collaboration will explore integrating SEEQC's Single Flux Quantum (SFQ) chip-based control layer technologies with IBM's leading-edge quantum systems architecture. SEEQC envisions using its SFQ technologies to shrink and consolidate external racks of classical control hardware by transferring certain elements to a system-on-a-chip that operates adjacent to quantum chips within an ultra-cold dilution refrigerator.
OQC announces research that could dramatically accelerate the path to commercially viable quantum computers
https://oqc.tech/company/newsroom/oqc-announces-dual-rail-dimon-research
Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
Commentary: Well, ok, but how does this dual-rail approach differ from what Quantum Circuits Inc. does?
Excerpt: OQC’s breakthrough centers on its patented dual-rail dimon qubit technology, the Dimon approach, which uses a novel “dual-rail” hardware design to detect and suppress errors at the individual qubit level – something that previous quantum systems couldn’t achieve efficiently. In new research published on arXiv, the Company demonstrates a critical milestone of reproducible error suppressed qubits; slashing the hardware overheads required for quantum error corrected logical qubits, bringing fault-tolerant quantum computing within reach using far fewer physical qubits than previously thought necessary.
Quantum Error Correction and Fault Tolerance
Riverlane Global Quantum Error Correction Survey
https://zo1r3443aln.typeform.com/QECSurvey2025
Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Excerpt: Riverlane is inviting you to participate in its Global Quantum Error Correction Survey to assess the current landscape of QEC research, education, skills and adoption. Five participants will each win one of five Meta Quest 3 VR headsets. Plus, one lucky person will also take home a piece of quantum computing history: the revolutionary ASIC decoder chip developed by Riverlane. Results will be published in the coming months, including as part of The QEC Report 2025. All data will be anonymized to protect participants' privacy.
Microsoft advances quantum error correction with a family of novel four-dimensional codes | Microsoft Azure Quantum Blog
Author: Krysta Svore
Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
Excerpt: Learn how we're advancing quantum computing by developing 4D error-correction codes that are applicable to many types of qubits.
Quantum Error Correction and Fault Tolerance | Technical
[2506.15130] A Topologically Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer with Four Dimensional Geometric Codes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15130
Authors: Aasen, David; Hastings, Matthew B.; Kliuchnikov, Vadym; Bello-Rivas, Juan M.; Paetznick, Adam; Chao, Rui; Reichardt, Ben W.; Zanner, Matt; da Silva, Marcus P.; ; ...; and Svore, Krysta M.
Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Excerpt: Topological quantum codes are intrinsically fault-tolerant to local noise, and underlie the theory of topological phases of matter. We explore geometry to enhance the performance of topological quantum codes by rotating the four dimensional self-correcting quantum memory, and present codes targeted to both near-term and utility-scale quantum computers. We identify a full set of logical Clifford operations and with it design a universal fault-tolerant quantum architecture. Our design achieves single-shot error correction, significant reductions in required qubits, and low-depth logical operations. In turn, our proposed architecture relaxes the requirements for achieving fault tolerance and offers an efficient path for realization in several near-term quantum hardware implementations. Our [[96,6,8]] 4D Hadamard lattice code has low weight-6 stabilizers and depth-8 syndrome extraction circuits, a high pseudo-threshold of $\sim 0.01$, and a logical error rate of $\sim 10–6$ per logical qubit per round of error correction at $10–3$ physical error rate under a standard circuit-level noise model. A Clifford-complete logical gate set is presented, including a constructive and efficient method for Clifford gate synthesis.
Quantum Networking
Nu Quantum Launches World-First Quantum Networking Unit for Dynamic Entanglement to Scale Quantum Datacentres
Date: Thursday, June 12, 2025
Excerpt: Nu Quantum, the quantum computing scale-out company, today announces the world’s first modular, rack-mounted, datacentre compatible Quantum Networking Unit (QNU) - a key technology breakthrough to enable real-time entanglement distribution across quantum datacentres.
Designed for scalability, modularity and real-world deployment, the QNU marks a critical step in moving quantum networking from lab demonstrations to commercial infrastructure.
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Dr. Bob Sutor is the CEO and Founder of Sutor Group Intelligence and Advisory. Sutor Group provides comprehensive market insights and in-depth technical expertise, leveraging over four decades of experience working with startups and large corporations. It advises Deep Tech startups, companies, and investors on quantum technologies, AI, and other emerging tech fields.
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