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Founded in 2015 and based in Palo Alto, the start-up has received a significant investment from the Australian government for a site expected to be ready by 2027.
PsiQuantum, a start-up that wants to build the world’s first useful quantum computer, has raised A$940m through government funding in Australia.
Announced yesterday (29 April), the funding will help PsiQuantum build a utility-scale quantum computer at a site near Brisbane Airport.
The investment was made by the Australian Commonwealth and Queensland governments through a financial package that includes equity, grants and loans. PsiQuantum said it plans to have the site operational by the end of 2027.
While quantum theory is now almost 100 years old, the race to build a working quantum computer is a more recent phenomenon with big names such as IBM, Intel and Google all throwing their hats in the ring.
Quantum computers could potentially solve commercially useful problems across a range of industries, from renewable energy, minerals and metals to healthcare and transportation.
While the silicon-based computers of today use bits to store and manipulate information, quantum computers rely on quantum bits or qubits.
The ability to reliably control a qubit is an important achievement for realising functional quantum computers in the future. However, even the smallest changes in environment can cause a quantum system to become unreliable, which makes scaling a significant challenge.
PsiQuantum said it has scaled its fusion-based architecture using a photonics approach: encoding qubits into particles of light and leveraging advanced infrastructure in the semiconductor manufacturing industry to fabricate and test millions of photonic devices.
“A utility-scale quantum computer represents an opportunity to construct a new, practical foundation of computational infrastructure and in so doing ignite the next industrial revolution,” said Prof Jeremy O’Brien, CEO of PsiQuantum.
“This platform will help solve today’s impossible problems and will serve as a tool to design the solutions we so desperately need to safeguard our future. We’re thrilled to partner with the Australian and Queensland governments as our team at PsiQuantum takes a massive step forward in our mission to help deliver on the promise of quantum computing.”
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company was founded in 2015 by Jeremy O’Brien, Terry Rudolph, Peter Shadbolt and Mark Thompson.
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