On the outskirts of Santa Barbara, California, between the orchards and the ocean, sits an inconspicuous warehouse, its windows tinted brown and its exterior painted a dull gray. The facility has almost no signage, and its name doesn’t appear on Google Maps.

A 1960s nuclear research lab in the North of England will host a new quantum computing facility under plans drawn up by a Silicon Valley technology company.

PsiQuantum is to set up a research hub at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, using the facility’s state of the art cooling systems to develop its technology.

The emerging technology of quantum computing could revolutionize the fight against climate change, transforming the economics of decarbonization and becoming a major factor in limiting global warming to the target temperature of 1.5°C (see sidebar “What is quantum computing?”).

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has announced that it has selected the companies that will receive funding under its Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program.

In 2009, Jeremy O'Brien, a professor at the University of Bristol, published a research paper describing how to repurpose on-chip optical components originally developed by the telecom industry to manipulate single particles of light and perform quantum operations. By 2016, based on the earlier photonic research, O’Brien and three of his academic colleagues, Terry Rudolph, Mark Thompson, and Pete Shadbolt, created PsiQuantum.

The funding will be provided by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) through the Air Force Research (AFRL) Laboratory located in Rome, New York. This lab has been designated as the Quantum Information Science Research Center for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.

We recently announced a new approach to vastly increasing the efficiency of running quantum algorithms. We call it the Active Volume Architecture. The key insight is that if you have access to certain hardware capabilities then you can obtain remarkable reductions in the running costs of commercially useful quantum algorithms (for example, reducing running costs by around 50x for factoring algorithms).

This technique specifically targets algorithms for error-corrected quantum computers, as opposed to non-error-corrected NISQ systems. ‘Active volume compilation’ reduces the time taken to run a given application, through more efficient use of the available hardware.

Forbes

In this most recent HPCwire/QCwire survey, senior researchers from D-Wave Systems, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and PsiQuantum tackle benchmarking, networking, and hybrid classical-quantum computing approaches.

HPCwire

In an announcement at the 2022 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, PsiQuantum announced it is setting up a new subsidiary called Qlimate devoted to using quantum computing to help solve the many computational problems associated with developing solutions for climate change.

Quantum Computing Report

Quantum computing has the potential to drive the major breakthroughs needed to help solve the climate crisis. Jeremy O’Brien, a pioneer in the field, shares how PsiQuantum is seeking to harness quantum computing for large-scale climate-change mitigation.

McKinsey – Learn to Leap

Erik Hosler of PsiQuantum discussed what's needed to build a useful quantum computer in his Plenary session at the SPIE Advanced Lithography and Patterning 2022 conference.

SPIE

Erik Hosler, Pattern Technologist at PsiQuantum, discusses perfecting the process of building the best quantum computer “without breaking the bank or the fab”.

SPIE

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer today announced $25 million in federal funding to spur a new phase in the partnership between GlobalFoundries & PsiQuantum. This funding, secured as a part of the recently passed Fiscal Year 2022 spending package, will expand research and development spearheaded out of the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York (Rome Lab), to manufacture and test photonic quantum computing technology.

Office of Charles E. Schumer – United States Senator for New York

The Register

An interview with Pete Shadbolt, Chief Scientific Officer at PsiQuantum, on the approach PsiQuantum is taking to develop a quantum computer.

Quantum Computing Report

The quantum summit last week in the US included a roundtable discussion with representatives of the Executive Office of the President and leaders from quantum information technology companies.

eeNews Europe

Quantum computers can help us regulate the climate, make new medicines and solve the energy problem. Australian Jeremy O'Brien hopes to create 'the first useful quantum computer' by the end of the decade with his company PsiQuantum.

De Tijd

PsiQuantum is aiming to be the first company to develop a fully-functioning quantum computer, and has raised $450m from backers.

The Telegraph