QuantWare Launches Commercially Available Superconducting Quantum Processors
(HPC.Wire) Dutch startup QuantWare has launched the world’s first commercially available superconducting processor for quantum computers (QPU). This is the first time superconducting quantum processors have been available ‘off the shelf’, a development with the potential to significantly accelerate the quantum computing revolution.
Superconducting is the leading and most mature approach to quantum processors – Google achieved “quantum supremacy” in 2019 using superconducting QPUs. While other QPUs are already available “off the shelf”, this is the first time a superconducting QPU has been easily available in productised form, leveling the playing field for quantum experimentation.
QuantWare’s proprietary product, Soprano, is a 5-qubit QPU. In an article published by Ars Technica, QuantWare shared that “the fidelities of each qubit will be 99.9 percent, which should keep the error rate manageable.” 5 qubits is sufficient for the immediate customer base QuantWare expects to attract, namely research institutions and university labs.
Our Soprano QPU is what the Intel 4004 was for the semiconductor business,” says QuantWare co-founder Matthijs Rijlaarsdam. “Superconducting qubits are highly customizable, easy to control and very scalable. That practicality makes superconducting QPUs by far the most likely candidate for near-term quantum computing applications.”
QuantWare’s products significantly lower the costs traditionally required to create quantum technology. The company has already demonstrated its approach by supplying a QPU to the ImpaQT project, the world’s first multi-company quantum computer.
