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OXFORD, England, Feb. 6, 2024 Q-CTRL, a global leader in developing useful quantum technologies through quantum control infrastructure software, was recently announced as a winner of the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Quantum Catalyst Fund Competition.

Awarded 1 million (~US$1.26 million) in funding, Q-CTRLs winning proposal will deliver new quantum-hardware-optimized algorithmic solvers built on their proprietary performance management software to the Department for Transport and Network Rail. This software will address train schedule optimization for both large-scale rail networks and detailed station routing, bringing a new generation of quantum solutions to pressing government problems.

The SBRI competition is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and Innovate UK (IUK) to explore the benefit of using quantum technologies in various areas of interest for the UK government.

The competition consisted of two stages: Phase 1 with a three-month duration and a 2 million total budget, followed by Phase 2 extending 15 months with a total budget of up to 15 million. Successful projects from Phase 1 competed to continue their development in Phase 2.

Q-CTRL was one of six entries achieving Phase 2 status and received a share of the 15 million funding pool. The work to be delivered builds on Q-CTRLs deep expertise in quantum computing for logistics and transport, developed with customers including Transport for NSW and the Australian Army.

Science Minister, Andrew Griffith MP said, As we steer towards an economy benefitting from quantum, this further 45 million in funding underscores our commitment to support bright UK innovators who are pushing boundaries and seizing the potential of this technology to transform our public services.

Planning and operating public rail transport networks involves making tough scheduling choices to balance passenger service, infrastructure management, and resilience to disruption. To effectively meet these objectives, fast and high-quality computing tools are needed, solving a class of problems called optimization.

The Department for Transport and Network Rail is interested in leveraging state-of-the-art quantum solutions for scheduling to provide improvements in transit time, robustness to delays, and reductions in operating costs and emissions.

In the winning proposal, researchers and engineers at Q-CTRL will tailor a quantum optimization algorithm for high-performance scheduling to run efficiently on quantum computer hardware, and test on systems from Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC). The software is designed to be usable by anyone in the Department for Transport and Network Rails scheduling team, without needing any expertise in quantum computing.

Andre Carvalho, Head of Quantum Control Solutions at Q-CTRL noted, This funding marks a significant step towards applying quantum computing in practical settings. By optimizing train schedules with quantum algorithms, were not just enhancing efficiency and reducing emissions; were paving the way for quantum technologies to solve real-world problems and make a tangible impact on peoples lives.

Q-CTRLs leading expertise in delivering useful quantum solutions leveraging performance-management infrastructure software for quantum computers, together with OQCs state-of-the-art quantum processors, will enable the Department to easily prototype quantum solutions for their most pressing challenges and gain real insights into the future of quantum computing for their sector.

Quantum computing is an emerging technology with the opportunity to transform a wide range of industries. In the near term, quantum optimization for transport, logistics, and machine learning is a leading candidate for early value capture, where even small computational benefits can deliver huge advantages.

About Q-CTRL

Q-CTRLs quantum control infrastructure software for R&D professionals and quantum computing end users delivers the highest performance error-correcting and suppressing techniques globally, and provides a unique capability accelerating the pathway to the first useful quantum computers and quantum sensors. Q-CTRL operates a globally leading quantum sensing division focused on software-level innovation for strategic capability. Q-CTRL also has developed Black Opal, an edtech platform that enables users to quickly learn quantum computing.

Source: Q-CTRL

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Q-CTRL Awarded 1M Funding in UK Quantum Catalyst Competition - HPCwire

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Revolutionizing Quantum Computing with Multi-Nuclear Spin Qubit Registers

Quantum computing, an exciting frontier of computer science, is witnessing significant strides in technological advancements. Central to this progress is the development of multi-nuclear spin qubit registers using phosphorus donor atom qubits in silicon. This breakthrough, powered by the hyperfine interaction between the electron and nuclear spins, has enabled swift qubit operation, control, and high-fidelity initialization of all nuclear spins within a four-qubit nuclear spin register. Unlike non-deterministic procedures, this deterministic protocol for initializing nuclear spins presents a promising alternative for quantum computing.

The precise placement of phosphorus donors in silicon has resulted in direct inter-register coupling, showcasing long spin relaxation times, highly tunable exchange coupling, and improved qubit addressability. Moreover, researchers have managed to achieve high-fidelity control of a single electron spin qubit in a multi-nuclear spin qubit register, with a primitive gate fidelity surpassing the fault-tolerant threshold for error correction in quantum computing. This atomic engineering in a solid-state material has the potential to introduce novel phenomena, reduce gate densities, and decrease correlated noise between qubits.

A study by researchers from the University of New South Wales and Silicon Quantum Computing Pty Ltd has provided insights into the superexchange coupling of donor qubits in silicon. By placing four phosphorus donors in a linear chain, coherent spin coupling was achieved between the end dopants of the chain. This research provides an in-depth understanding of long-range indirect coupling for donor qubits in silicon, signifying a promising building block for silicon quantum computers.

In a bid to fast-track the growth of the quantum computing sector, the UKs National Quantum Computing Centre is investing 30 million to establish seven quantum computing testbeds by March 2025. These testbeds, based on various hardware technologies, will serve to demonstrate and evaluate the capabilities of different qubit platforms such as superconducting qubits, trapped ion platforms, neutral atoms, photonics-based quantum computing, and spin qubits within a silicon chip architecture. This initiative targets building fully functioning systems within a 15-month sprint timeframe.

Aside from showcasing the potential of diverse hardware solutions, the quantum computing testbeds initiative aims to reinforce local supply chains for numerous quantum technologies. Furthermore, it envisions a collaborative landscape that ensures intellectual property protection for all participating organizations. As quantum computing continues to evolve, such initiatives are vital in fostering an environment of collaboration, innovation, and advancement in the field.

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Revolutionizing Quantum Computing with Multi-Nuclear Spin Qubit Registers - Medriva

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The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has released an updated report on quantum computing progress in the past five years, based on a workshop held in the spring 2023. While the CCC report doesnt break new ground its a good overview.

CCC posted a blog this week by Catherine Gill on the report that notes:

Quantum Computing is in the Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) era currently, meaning that Quantum Computers are still prone to high error rates and are able to maintain few logical qubits. The work being done in Quantum Error Correction, however, is enabling Quantum Computing to transition towards a Fault-tolerant future. There has been remarkable progress in quantum computer hardware in the last five years, says Kenneth Brown, Professor of Engineering at Duke University, but challenges remain in terms of reducing errors and scaling systems. We thought it was critical to bring together experts in quantum computing, computer architecture, and systems engineering to plan for the next ten years.

The workshop and subsequent report focused on five areas:

The infographic list of qubit types below is a nice primer. Its necessarily incomplete as the number of qubit types seems to grow daily.

The report concludes Quantum computing is at a historic and pivotal time, with substantial engineering progress in the past 5 years and a transition to fault-tolerant systems in the next 5 years. Taking stock of what we have learned from NISQ systems, this report examined 5 key areas in which computer scientists have an important role in exploring.

Among the reports interesting findings is a recommendation to standardize QC benchmarking. We recommend exploring standardized benchmarking frameworks to identify a set of benchmarks which would enable us to evaluate quantum platforms, algorithms, and potential domain problems. For example, an end-to-end quantum machine learning benchmark would allow us to evaluate not only the general performance of a quantum device, but also the algorithms noise resilience and data sensitivity. More work on widely accepted benchmarks with input from other communities (computer scientists, machine-learning communities) may also lead to increased collaboration and interest from other domain experts.

(CCC is the NSF-created entity in 2007 The CCC operates as a programmatic committee of CRA under CRAs bylaws: its membership only slightly overlaps the CRAs Board of Directors; it has significant autonomy; and it has a great deal of synergistic mutual benefit with CRA. The CCC Council meets three times every calendar year, including at least one meeting in Washington, D.C., and has biweekly conference calls between these meetings. Also, the CCC leadership has biweekly conference calls with the leadership of NSFsDirectorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).)

Link to CCC blog, https://cccblog.org/2024/01/25/ccc-releases-the-5-year-update-to-the-next-steps-in-quantum-computing-workshop-report/

Link to CCC report, https://cccblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/5-Year-Update-to-the-Next-Steps-in-Quantum-Computing.pdf

*The report authors include: Kenneth Brown, Duke University Fred Chong, University of Chicago Kaitlin N. Smith, Northwestern University and Infleqtion Thomas M. Conte, Georgia Institute of Technology and Community Computing Consortium Austin Adams, Georgia Institute of Technology Aniket Dalvi, Duke University Christopher Kang, University of Chicago Josh Viszlai, University of Chicago

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CCC Releases Updated Report on Quantum Computing Progress - HPCwire

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The prototype system will be based on the same silicon MOS platform used throughout the consumer electronics industry today, while the test bed forms part of NQCCs vision to enable the UK to solve some of the most complex and challenging problems by harnessing the potential of quantum computing, according to London-based Quantum Motion.

As well as a cryogenic CMOS IC-based prototype, the project includes cryo-electronics and machine learning control to tune the quantum devices.

This is not the only quantum computing hardware being assembled at NQCC. Together with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, it has announced 30m for prototypes that it aims to have by March 2025.

There is a growing realisation across the industry that quantum developers need access to the hardware to engineer scalable solutions for a full-stack quantum computer, said NQCC director Michael Cuthbert. Once built, these system-level prototypes will help the NQCC and its collaborators to understand the unique characteristics of different hardware approaches, establish appropriate metrics for each qubit architecture, and explore the types of applications that benefit most from each technological approach.

Results will feed into UK academia, industry and government to develop use-cases for early-stage quantum computers, and to identify gaps that will need to be filled before adoption.

Quantum Motion was founded by Professor John Morton of University College London and Professor Simon Benjamin of the University of Oxford. Now with 50 staff, the company claims to have qubits with typical dimensions below 100nm and expertise in fault-tolerant computer architectures and error mitigation, on top of the machine learning algorithms mentioned above.

Other companies sharing the 30m to produce prototypes are: Aegiq (Sheffield), Cold Quanta UK (Warwick), Orca Computing (London), Oxford Ionics (Oxford), QuEra Computing (Exeter) and Rigetti UK (London).

At the same time as announcing that funding, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology also announced where its 15m Quantum Catalyst Fund (funded byDSITand Innovate UK) would be distributed, with the aim of accelerating the adoption of quantum solutions by the public sector, it said.

Winners here are: Cambridge Quantinuum (London), MoniRail (West Midlands), Cerca Magnetics (Nottingham), Delta g (Birmingham), Q-Ctrl UK (London) andPhasecraft (London).

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30m for prototypes at the UK National Quantum Computing Centre - Electronics Weekly

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Quantum computing will be a massive game-changer. With it, the world may be able to solve problems far too complex for typical computers within minutes, or even seconds. All while creating massive opportunities for quantum computing stocks.

It could even be used to discover new drugs, quicker than even imagined. For example,according to ZDNet.com, the discovery of new drugs relies on molecular simulation, which is complex and time-consuming with all of the calculations needed. Its expected thatmodeling a molecule with only 70 atoms would take a classical computer up to 13 billion years,they added. Meanwhile, a quantum computer may be able to figure it all out in minutes.

Quantum computing may even be able to help advance artificial intelligence, machine learning, financial modeling, cybersecurity, batteries, and even help with the green energy boom.

No wonder governments all over the world are heavily investing in quantum computing.

In fact, according tothe State of Quantum 2024,more than 30 governments have already made commitments of more than $40 billion to quantum technologies over the next 10 years. Even better, some analysts say the quantum computing market could eventually be worth about $850 billion by 2040,noted Forbes.

With that, investors may want to invest in quantum computing stocks, such as:

Source: Shutterstock

Shares ofIonQ(NYSE:IONQ) exploded from a low of about $3.05 to a high of $21.60. Now back to $10.27, it could have another explosive year ahead. For one, investors are just starting to wake up to the opportunity in quantum computing stocks.

Two, the company just boosted itsfull-year revenue guidanceto a range of $21.2 million to $22 million from its prior range of $18.9 million to $19.3 million. It also boosted its full-year bookings to a new range of $60 million to $63 million from a prior range of $49 million to $56 million. Helping, IONQ wasawarded a $25.5 million deal with the U.S. Air Force Research Lab for barium-based trapped ion quantum computing systems.

The company is also working with major cloud providers, includingAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) Bracket,Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure, and Alphabets (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Cloud.

In addition, the company just revealed details of a #AQ (algorithmic qubits) 64. That,according to IONQwould far exceed what can be simulated with classical computers and GPUs, and provide a computational space 536 million times larger than even IonQ Forte Enterprise, an astonishing leap in computational power.

Source: Amin Van / Shutterstock.com

D-Wave Quantum(NYSE:QBTS), which claims to be the worlds first commercial supplier of quantum computers, is helping clients unlock the power of quantum computing with logistics, artificial intelligence, drug discovery, and even cybersecurity issues.

Most recently, it inked a deal with Deloitte to speed up quantum computing adoption for governments and companies all over Canada. Its even been working with Deloitte on transportation and national security issues in the U.S., too.

Even better, the company isseeing quarter-over-quarter, and year-over-year growthin revenue, and customer bookings. For example, in its third quarter, company revenue improved by 51% year over year, and 50% quarter over quarter. Third-quarter bookings were up 53% year over year, which was the companys sixth straight quarter of year-over-year bookings growth. Plus, year-to-date bookings came in at $8.4 million, a 125% jump year over year.

Source: SHUN_J / Shutterstock

Another way to unlock the potential of quantum computing is with an exchange-traded fund (ETF), like theDefiance Quantum ETF(NYSEARCA:QTUM). Investors seem to like it, having sent it from a low of about $45 to a recent high of $56. Of course, thatll happen when some of its biggest holdings are inNvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA),Marvell Technology(NASDAQ:MRVL), andAdvanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ:AMD).

With an expense ratio of 0.40%, the ETF is exposed to companies at the forefront of machine learning, quantum computing, cloud computing, and other transformative computing technologies, as noted by DefianceETFs.com. It also tracks the BlueStar Quantum Computing and Machine Learning Index, with about 71 holdings.

On the date of publication, Ian Cooper did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.

Ian Cooper, a contributor to InvestorPlace.com, has been analyzing stocks and options for web-based advisories since 1999.

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3 Stocks to Unlock the Incredible Potential of Quantum Computing - InvestorPlace

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