IonQ Debuts Industry’s First Reconfigurable Multicore Quantum Architecture

(HPC.Wire) IonQ, Inc. has unveiled the industry’s first Reconfigurable Multicore Quantum Architecture (RMQA) technology, a breakthrough in quantum computing. Starting with the demonstration of 4 chains of 16 ions each that can be dynamically configured into quantum computing cores, IonQ believes it has laid the foundation for increases to qubit count into the triple digits on a single chip, as well as future Parallel Multicore Quantum Processing Units.
This demonstration was achieved on a technological platform recently added to IonQ’s intellectual property war chest, called Evaporated Glass Traps (EGTs). Developed by an IonQ team led by UC Berkeley Physics Ph.D. and ex-GTRI and -NIST researcher Jason Amini, the EGT platform offers an unprecedented level of performance and is a crucial part of IonQ’s roadmap to rapid scalability and increased computing power.
“The Reconfigurable Multicore Quantum Architecture marks a key milestone for IonQ and for the quantum computing industry in general,” remarked IonQ President and CEO Peter Chapman. “RMQA is a critical enabler of our ability to scale qubit density and deliver the computational power projected in our roadmap. We’re very proud of the team at IonQ that has achieved a powerful platform for scalability and control in a single technical breakthrough.”
Today’s news involves the separation and merger of a total of 64 ions to create a RMQA using 4 chains of 16 ions each. The ion chains are transported and merged into permutations of a higher-connectivity, 32-ion quantum computing core, allowing for scaling to large numbers of qubits without the fidelity loss that historically accompanies very long chains of ions. This architecture was realized on IonQ’s EGT Series ion trap chip, which provides the stability necessary to operate this architecture with little to no recalibration, maximizing uptime and optimizing transport. The EGT series platforms are expected to be extended to support more chains, with each chain increasing the quantum computational power by a factor of 4000 or more.