Quantinuum scientists make adjustments to a beam-line array used to deliver laser pulses in quantum computers. (Quantinuum Photo) Microsoft and Quantinuum say they’ve demonstrated a quantum computing system that can reduce the error rate for data processing by a factor of 800. “Today signifies a major achievement for the entire quantum ecosystem,” Jason Zander, Microsoft’s executive vice president for strategic missions and technologies, said in a blog posting about the achievement. Quantum computing could solve certain types of problems — ranging from data encryption and system optimization t ..read more

IonQ says its 100,000-square-foot Bothell factory is the first dedicated quantum computer manufacturing facility in the U.S. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) BOTHELL, Wash. — IonQ’s quantum computer factory is still ramping up to full operation, but the company is already expanding its footprint by tens of thousands of square feet. A year ago, when IonQ revealed its plans to create a new kind of research and manufacturing facility in the Seattle area, the idea was to use roughly 65,000 square feet of space on two floors of a three-story building in Bothell that once housed offices for AT&T Wi ..read more

An artist’s conception shows a data center powered by IonQ’s Forte Enterprise servers. (IonQ Illustration) IonQ has opened up its most advanced quantum computing platform for public availability through Amazon’s cloud-based Braket Direct Program, even as the Maryland-based company gears up to produce even more advanced hardware at a Seattle-area manufacturing facility. IonQ Forte joins two earlier generations of the company’s processing hardware, Harmony and Aria, as options for Amazon Web Service’s Braket quantum computing service. Forte has been commercially available as a standalone system ..read more

Chip-sized ion traps are key components in IonQ’s quantum computers. (IonQ Photo / Kai Hudek) Maryland-based IonQ is expanding the commercial availability of its next-generation Forte quantum computer — and ramping up its research and production facility in the Seattle area to work on the next, next generation. Forte is expected to bring the quantum frontier closer to the point that customers can start running real-world applications rather than merely experimenting with quantum capabilities, said Chris Monroe, co-founder and chief scientist at IonQ. “We’re not talking a decade away here anymo ..read more

Quantum computing could change our perspective on the cosmos. (Illustration: Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1660 / Microsoft, 2022 / Alan Boyle) What does quantum computing have in common with the Oscar-winning movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once”? One is a mind-blowing work of fiction, while the other is an emerging frontier in computer science — but both of them deal with rearrangements of particles in superposition that don’t match our usual view of reality. Fortunately, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has provided a guidebook to the real-life frontier, titled “Quantum Supremacy: How the Qua ..read more

Physicists Christian Boutan and Jihee Yang adjust a dilution refrigerator that controls the temperature of a superconducting quantum bit, or qubit. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Photo / Andrea Starr) California’s Silicon Valley may rule the roost for internet startups, and Kendall Square in the Boston area may set the pace for the biotech industry, but could the Pacific Northwest leap into the lead for quantum computing? Experts who are exploring one of the computing world’s hottest frontiers say there’s a chance that Seattle could become the heart of a “Quantum Valley” — but it could ..read more

A hydrogen-powered car fills up at a refueling station built at Johnson Matthey’s manufacturing site in Swindon, England. (Johnson Matthey via YouTube) Chemists at Microsoft Azure Quantum are teaming up with Johnson Matthey, a British-based clean-tech company, to identify new types of catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells. The project demonstrates how quantum information science could help reduce the automobile industry’s carbon footprint and address the challenge of climate change. “So far, Johnson Matthey has seen a twofold acceleration in quantum chemistry calculations, and we’re just getting s ..read more

Kim Sherwood checks out the driver’s seat of the Alpine A110S sports car favored by her fictional Agent 003. (Photo by Rosie Sherwood) Imagine a James Bond story with quantum computers, brain-computer interfaces, a cloud-shifting climate control system and a billionaire who owns his own launch system and satellite constellation. Now imagine that James Bond is missing from the story. That’s the unconventional tack taken by British author Kim Sherwood in her first-ever spy thriller, “Double or Nothing” — the kickoff to a trilogy that introduces a new cast of secret agents, pl ..read more

This Palace simulation visualizes the electric field energy density for a metamaterlal waveguide. (AWS Graphic) Today’s news from the frontier of quantum computing includes Amazon Web Services’ release of cloud-based simulation software for modeling the electromagnetic properties of quantum hardware, Google’s latest technological advance aimed at lowering the error rate of quantum calculations, and new recommendations about the public sector’s role on the frontier. Amazon opens a ‘Palace’ for designers Amazon Web Services is introducing an open-source software platform called Palace (which sta ..read more

Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) and the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) face a supervillain in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” (Photo Courtesy of Marvel Studios) Ant-Man may be getting small in Marvel’s latest superhero movie — but in the real world, quantum is getting big. Quantum information science is one of the top tech priorities for the White House, right up there with artificial intelligence. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM and other tech heavyweights are closing in on the development of honest-to-goodness quantum processors. A company called IonQ has a billion-dollar plan ..read more