Quantum News Briefs July 12: Kipu Quantum acquires PlanQK to boost development of industrially relevant quantum solutions • Oxford Ionics sets industry records for two-qubit and single-qubit gate performance • EuroHPC & AQT sign procurement contract for EuroQCS-Poland quantum computer • Qubit Pharmaceuticals and Sorbonne University reduce number of qubits needed to simulate molecules

Sandra Helsel

4 months ago

News Briefs:

Kipu Quantum acquires PlanQK to boost development of industrially relevant quantum solutions

Kipu Quantum, a leading quantum software company, announced today the strategic acquisition of PlanQK, a quantum computing platform successfully built and commercialized by Anaqor AG as per the July 11 news release.
Along with its platform, key members from its team of experts joined Kipu Quantum to lead the way in making useful quantum computing accessible to organizations of all sizes, including industrial, academic, and governmental entities. This announcement follows Kipu Quantum’s successful €11.4 million second closing of the seed funding round led by HV Capital and DTCF in late 2023.
The acquisition will drastically accelerate the commercialization of Kipu’s application- and hardware-specific algorithms, as services through the PlanQK platform, enabling frictionless access for organizations to integrate quantum solutions into their existing processes.
Combining their strengths, Kipu Quantum and the PlanQK team are set to greatly enhance quantum computing accessibility across various industries, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, logistics, and finance, accelerating these sectors towards achieving quantum advantage.

Oxford Ionics sets industry records for two-qubit and single-qubit gate performance

Oxford Ionics has demonstrated the highest performing quantum chip in the world, which can be produced at scale in a standard semiconductor fabrication plant according to its July 11 news release.
Building stable, high-performance quantum computers is hugely challenging. It demands the creation of high-performance qubits and a way to control those qubits in a scalable way. Only one technology – trapped ions – has demonstrated the performance needed to build a useful quantum computer. However, until now, trapped ions have been difficult to scale as they are typically controlled by lasers.
Oxford Ionics has eliminated the need to use lasers to control qubits through the development of a patented Electronic Qubit Control system. This unique, embedded approach takes the highest performing qubit technology – trapped ions – and integrates everything needed to control them into a silicon chip that can be mass-produced using standard semiconductor manufacturing facilities and processes.

EuroHPC & AQT sign procurement contract for EuroQCS-Poland quantum computer

The procurement contract of EuroQCS-Poland, the EuroHPC quantum computer to be located in Poland, has been signed by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and AQT, the selected vendor as per the EuroHPC.
EuroQCS-Poland will be a digital, gate-based quantum computer, based on trapped-ions offering 20-plus physical qubits. This quantum computer will primarily target research and innovation and will be available to a wide range of European end-users, spanning from the scientific community to industry and the public sector. It will support the development of a wide range of applications with industrial, scientific and societal relevance for Europe and adding new capabilities to the European supercomputing infrastructure.
The new quantum computer will be integrated with a classical supercomputing system to enhance hybrid quantum-classical computing approaches. Consequently, new hybrid quantum-classical use cases and benchmarks will be supported, including but not limited to quantum optimization, quantum chemistry, quantum material sciences and quantum machine learning. The new system on the basis of trapped-ions will also provide several unique features that will make it attractive for end-users and applications like high fidelity qubits, long coherence times, universal quantum gates and all-to-all connectivity support.

Qubit Pharmaceuticals and Sorbonne University reduce number of qubits needed to simulate molecules

Qubit Pharmaceuticals , a deeptech company specializing in the discovery of new drug candidates through molecular simulation and modeling accelerated by hybrid HPC and quantum computing, announced that it has drastically reduced the number of qubits needed to compute the properties of small molecules with its Hyperion-1 emulator, developed in partnership with Sorbonne Université, according to Qubit Pharmaceuticals’ announcement.
This world first raises hopes of a near-term practical application of hybrid HPC – quantum computing to drug discovery.
As a result of these advances, Qubit Pharmaceuticals and Sorbonne Université are announcing that they have been awarded €8 million in funding under the France 2030 national plan for the further development of Hyperion-1.
By developing new hybrid HPC and quantum algorithms to leverage the computing power of quantum computers in the field of chemistry and drug discovery, Sorbonne Université and Qubit Pharmaceuticals have succeeded, with just 32 logic qubits, in predicting the physico-chemical properties of nitrogen (N2), hydrogen fluoride (HF), lithium hydride and water – molecules that would normally require more than 250 perfect qubits. The Hyperion-1 emulator uses Genci supercomputers, Nvidia’s SuperPod EOS, and one of Scaleway’s many GPU clusters.