Here we are. Born to be qubits.
We're the princes of quantum technologies.
Spun out of the University of Glasgow, roughly 132 km from Glenfinnan and the shores of Loch Shiel, Quantcore is the only company in the UK focused on niobium superconducting quantum hardware, including the design and production of processors, resonators, and sensors. In case you missed it, “Scottish quantum hardware company raises £2.5m to build UK’s sovereign manufacturing capability” made three important points:
- Scaling. Using niobium instead of aluminum allows operation at higher temperatures, maybe up to 500 mK, which allows more qubits in a fridge.
- Speed. Using niobium instead of aluminum allows the use of higher frequencies, which means faster operations.
- Sovereignty. Quantcore is in Scotland, so I can finally invoke the Highlander franchise. It also provides security for UK’s supply chain but, hey, Highlander!
Some bonus points:
- Spreads the money beyond the Golden Triangle of London-Cambridge-Oxford
- Also applicable to single-photon detectors, but niobium-based qubits is new
- Potentially (unverified) useful with superconducting cat and GKP qubits
Although the press release focuses on sovereignty and supply chain security, it’s important to stress why niobium-based components should be of interest. Scalability, speed, and applicability to quantum sensing are worth highlighting.
Conclusion
In the end, there can be only one provider of niobium superconducting quantum hardware. Well, I guess there can be more than one, but at the moment, there is only one.
If you don’t get the Highlander reference, by the way, you need to watch the movie. And if you got the reference, I’d tell you watch it again but you’re probably way ahead of me on that. I’ve literally been singing the theme song the entire time I’ve been writing this.
