Quantum computing consortium led by Universal Quantum wins £7.5 million grant

(ScientificComputing) A consortium led by Universal Quantum has been awarded a £7.5m grant from Innovate UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to build a scalable quantum computer that can correct errors. The consortium also aims to apply this technology to high-impact problems in the aerospace industry.
Dr Sebastian Weidt, co-founder and CEO at Universal Quantum and lecturer in quantum technologies at the University of Sussex, said: ‘Error correction is crucial to achieving anything really useful with quantum computers, so we are absolutely delighted to have been awarded this grant. This project is an important step forward, helping us to go from today’s proof of principle machines to scalable quantum computers that can solve some of the world’s most pressing computational challenges.’
Aside from Universal Quantum, a University of Sussex spin-out company, the consortium brings together sector leaders covering key areas of quantum computing development. The consortium includes end-user Rolls-Royce supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Hartree Centre, quantum software developer Riverlane, supply chain partners Edwards, TMD Technologies (now acquired by Communications & Power Industries (CPI)) and Diamond Microwave, commercialisation and dissemination experts Sia Partners and Qureca and world-class academic groups from Imperial College London and the University of Sussex.
The consortium will tackle a major challenge in making quantum computers commercially viable, correcting the errors that quantum bits – qubits – are prone to. The consortium is taking a cohesive approach, addressing the key issues to make a useful quantum computer at the software, hardware and end-user level.
The consortium will bring together quantum hardware and software experts with world-class engineers and UK businesses, creating a new quantum ecosystem for the UK and boosting the burgeoning quantum tech cluster in the Greater Brighton City Region.
Using Universal Quantum’s scalable hardware, Riverlane, STFC Hartree Centre and experts from Rolls-Royce will map a specific use case to Universal Quantum’s computer, solving a set of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) problems in the aerospace sector.