In its most expensive project to date, Germany’s Cyber Agency (Cyberagentur) has awarded three different contracts to four quantum computing startups — Quantum Brilliance, ParityQC, Oxford Ionics, and neQxt.
Their mission is to deliver the world’s first quantum computer for “mobile security and defence” by 2027. After that, phase four of the project will kick in, and only one of the candidates will remain.
Qubits from defect diamonds
A portable quantum computer will be able to function independently of a network connection or a large data centre, which could be critical in crisis situations. These types of systems can also be easily transported and updated in the field.
“One of the things we’ll be working on with the Cyber Agency is what the desired form factor is,” Mark Mattingley-Scott, chief revenue officer and general manager for EMEA at Quantum Brilliance, told TNW. “How small and light does it need to be?”
Most methods for creating qubits require large cryogenic or vacuum systems. These types of structures do not lend themselves well to portability. As such, it is no surprise that the tech picked by the German government for this stage of development can do without them.
Quantum Brilliance is one of the companies that have won part of the €35mn project allocation. The Australian-German startup makes quantum accelerators and miniaturised processors out of diamond.
Something called nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres, a type of defect in diamonds, can be controlled and manipulated to act as qubits. This means that working with diamond as a material allows the processor’s qubits to function with high coherence (that is, maintain their quantum states) at room temperature.
“Another important point for us and also for the Cyber Agency, is that this is very much a validation of our vision of quantum computing, as well as our atom-scale fabrication and photoelectric readout technologies, which we’ve been developing over the last three years,” Mattingley-Scott said, referring to a precise method of manufacturing NV centres.
Quantum Brilliance also recently signed a partnership with the prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which belongs to the US Department of Energy.
For the Cyberagentur project it will be working in partnership with quantum architecture startup ParityQC, which is headquartered in Austria.
An ion-trapped MinIon
The Cyber Agency research project focuses specifically on deploying quantum computing for mobile defence and security scenarios and is shaped in the form of a competition over several stages. Along with Quantum Brilliance and ParityQC, there are two other startup candidates still in the game.
One is Oxford Ionics, a British startup that holds the current record for gate fidelity at 99.99916% for single-qubit gates and 99.97% for two-qubit gates. The company uses electronics, not lasers, to control its trapped-ion qubits.
“What’s unique about our technology is that we can achieve world-leading quantum performance on a standard, thumbnail-sized chip entirely produced in today’s semiconductor fabs,“ Chris Ballance, Oxford Ionics’ CEO, told TNW.
“This means we can deliver incredibly powerful quantum computing capabilities within systems that have very small physical footprints — if that’s what the customer needs.“
Oxford Ionics’ portable quantum computer is called MinIon. The first generation will have 32 high-fidelity qubits, but Ballance says it will be able to fit larger capacity chips which could scale to thousands of qubits. In order to help it scale the technology, Oxford Ionics has partnered with Germany’s largest semiconductor manufacturer Infineon.
The UK company currently holds the world fidelity performance record. It also recently won the contract to build a full-stack quantum computer named Quartet for the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre. While MinIon is the first mobile offering of its product line, Ballance said the company will continue to commercialise larger-scale machines.
Strengthening Germany’s digital sovereignty
The third contract for this stage of the project goes to the Cyberagentur compatriot startup neQxt. The full-stack quantum computing company is quite shy with providing detailed information, but says it will aim to integrate its existing trapped-ion technology into a compact, modular, scalable, and mobile system under the project name of maQue.
The aim of the Cyberagentur researchproject is to “bring Germany to the forefront of technology in the field of mobile quantum computing, to secure the leading position in quantum technology research that already exists today and thus to strengthen Germany’s digital sovereignty.”
Germany already has a strong position in quantum computing. Founded in Australia in 2019, Quantum Brilliance chose the country for its European headquarters for a number of reasons, including the engineering talent pool as well as instrumentation to make photonic systems, and assemble circuits and test equipment.
“If you look at the map of Europe, especially if you draw a triangle between the Netherlands, Germany, and France, you’ve got market leaders in all those segments in that triangle,” Mattingley-Scott added.
Not to mention a high concentration of end users — military and civilian alike. As governments wake up to the dawning of the quantum era, the next geopolitical and economic race might just be qubit-fuelled, and potentially pocket-sized.