Public Funding for Seeqc UK Limited

"SeeQC UK(SeeQC) is developing a Quantum-as-a-Service platform which will be available to all UK companies. To rapidly develop this platform, we must solve the problem of how to measure and analyse the performance of SeeQC and other emerging state-of-the-art quantum computing platforms. Measurements and analysis benchmarks must be performed via a method that can impartially compare and contrast the key performance metrics that underpin the performance of SeeQC hardware and that of our competitors. Only via rigorous and impartial measurement and analysis of Quantum Processor Units (QPUs), will SeeQC prove the competitive advantage of our technology to our customer base. To bring our QaaS platform to market, SeeQC must address two key measurement and analysis challenges: 1. We must create a measurement capability that allows SeeQC to efficiently access the specialist Superconducting quantum measurement facilities available to private companies in the UK. 2. We must develop impartial QPU benchmarking algorithms that confirm to our customers that we have addressed the specifications promised and that our processor have a competitive advantage in performance against alternative QPUs. For SeeQC to efficiently access superconducting quantum measurement facilities, we need to develop an advanced portable measurement system and cryostat sample cell. This system must self-calibrating against the ultra-low temperature facilities systems SeeQC can gain commercial access to in the UK. This flexible approach to QPU product development is an innovative business operation and has three key advantages: 1. Ultra-low temperature facilities are prohibitively expensive to purchase and operate. Gaining commercial access to this specialist equipment on an as-needs basis lowers SeeQC's operational costs significantly. 2. The flexibility to access the various low temperature facilities available in the UK will significantly increase our R&D bandwidth and productivity. 3. Accessing pre-existing tested and maintained specialist facilities significantly de-risks our company operations from an investment point of view. SeeQC will work with NPL to test the feasibility of our multi-facility access scheme. Successful automated calibration and consistent sample characteristic measurements via MK1 of the portable system will confirm the feasibility of SeeQC's capital equipment access scheme. SeeQC will work with STFC to test the feasibility of incorporating our QPUs with classical HPC systems; a crucial step towards creating our commercially accessible QaaS platform. Furthermore, STFC will determine a set of analysis criteria that characterise QPU performance against commercially valuable applications and Identify a set of generic benchmarks, that could test and rank SeeQC QPU's against the our competitors."

This proposal addresses the commercial use case of hydrodynamic simulation of shock waves, an application of commercial importance to our target government customer, DSTL. We will tackle the Sod Shock Tube problem by representing the problem as a tensorized network and then its implementation on quantum circuits. Since analytical solutions of the Sod problem exist, we have selected it as a validation case for our solver. A feasibility study (phase 1) will provide specifications for a (Phase 2) Proof-of-concept(POC) implementation of the Sod shock problem that utilises a novel Tensor Networks (TNs) method, mapped 1:1 to quantum circuits, for solving hydrodynamic CFD simulation, implemented directly on a full-stack quantum computer optimised at the hardware level to run the application, and benchmarked using tightly integrated classical computing.

This proposal addresses the commercial use case of hydrodynamic simulation of shock waves, an application of commercial importance to our target government customer, DSTL. We will tackle the Sod Shock Tube problem by representing the problem as a tensorized network and then its implementation on quantum circuits. Since analytical solutions of the Sod problem exist, we have selected it as a validation case for our solver. A feasibility study (phase 1) will provide specifications for a (Phase 2) Proof-of-concept(POC) implementation of the Sod shock problem that utilises a novel Tensor Networks (TNs) method, mapped 1:1 to quantum circuits, for solving hydrodynamic CFD simulation, implemented directly on a full-stack quantum computer optimised at the hardware level to run the application, and benchmarked using tightly integrated classical computing.

Quantum computers are a new type of powerful computer. They are based on building blocks called qubits. For quantum computers to work, we need to be able to control qubits in a predictable way. Controlling just one or two qubits is often the culmination of several years' work in a laboratory and can only be performed by highly trained researchers. Qubits are extremely fragile and require constant delicate attention, like the continuous tweaks of a circus performer keeping a plate spinning. With each new plate, the amount of computing power to keep them spinning increases. Eventually, with so many plates in the air at the same time, existing control methods quickly become overwhelmed. For quantum computing to become commercially useful, we need to be able to control hundreds or even thousands of qubits at the same time. This is the biggest bottleneck in quantum computing. We will solve this challenge by building a system that can control hundreds of qubits and that can be used across different types of quantum computers. We will also use a type of artificial intelligence called machine learning to automate the tuning of qubits and maximise the time they are 'spinning in the air'. This project brings together the UK's leading quantum software company (Riverlane), quantum hardware companies (SeeQC UK, Oxford Ionics) and research organisations (NPL, University of Oxford). They develop different types of qubits that we can test our control system on. Mind Foundry, a University of Oxford spin-out, will develop the artificial intelligence framework that can automatically keep the qubits "spinning". The University of Edinburgh will detect the state of the quantum computer and guarantee optimum performance after intervention. We will work together to combine quantum software and artificial intelligence to build a control system for quantum computers that is powerful and intelligent. Our project brings together UK-based academic and industrial organisations to strengthen the UK quantum industry and help produce quantum computers that will transform the way several industries, such as finance, drug discovery and materials development, work.

The covid 19 pandemic underlined the importance of quick and efficient development of drugs and vaccines, that are safe to deploy for wider use. Despite impressive developments during the pandemic, drug discovery remains a very long and expensive with very low probability of success. Identifying useful substances with suitable properties for specific diseases is very difficult task, even for the most powerful supercomputer. More than half of the few drugs that enter the phase of human trials, do not get approval for commercial use, with all the effort related to that going to waste. Quantum computing is a new type of supercomputer that works differently than current computers. Based on the exotic properties of quantum mechanics, they will be able to solve very complicated problems, that are currently unsolvable in a short amount of time; modelling the properties of drugs is one of these problems. Quantum computers can help scientists select and study more and better substances in order to deliver faster more efficient drugs for the benefit of all. In this project, we will develop a quantum computer and use it alongside a classical supercomputer to solve problems that are of real value to the pharmaceutical companies. SeeQC and Riverlane, two of the most successful UK-based companies developing quantum hardware and software respectively will join forces to develop a useful quantum machine. SeeQC will work with the Oxford Instruments to improve the quantum hardware, while Riverlane will develop the software to operate the quantum machine and the quantum algorithms to be used for the calculations. With the help of Merck, a global pharmaceutical company, the University of Oxford and the Medicines Discovery Catapult we will identify some of the pain points of the drug discovery process where quantum computers can help. We will solve them by interleaving our quantum machine with a very powerful supercomputer, that belongs to the Science and Technology funding Council. In this way, the most demanding part of the calculations will be solved on the quantum machine. This trick will deliver more accurate results ten times faster than standard computers. The UK is a world leader in the pharmaceutical sector and a pioneer in developing the quantum technology industry. This project is of real national value as it will boost the development of quantum computers, while showing how useful they can be in solving major problems of a very important industry.

Modern life is unthinkable without computers. An ever-increasing amount of energy is required for computing, impacting the global drive to a low-carbon economy, and Moore's law is slowing as the circuit dimensions approach physical limits. Quantum computers can create a computational space much larger than their classical counterparts. They will shape computing, science and commercial standards by solving numerical problems that are currently out of reach in fields including chemistry, material science, logistics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and cryptography. The race is on to build the world's first practical quantum computers, which requires scaling from arrays of a few dozen qubits, to thousands, to millions of qubits. To achieve this, we need to create integrated systems of qubit arrays and control electronics. In most implementations, the qubits require cryogenic cooling, typically to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Yet conventional CMOS electronics is designed to operate at room temperature, and if these chips are cooled to cryogenic temperatures, the operating characteristics of the transistors change markedly, and they no longer work as intended. This problem is well recognised in the industry. Major players such as Google, Microsoft and Intel have all invested in progressing towards building specialised "cryo-CMOS" control electronics that can operate in the very cold environment that the qubits require. Most quantum computing companies, however, don't have the resources to develop silicon CMOS processes for cryogenic temperatures. Instead, they rely on semiconductor fabrication via foundries (e.g., TSMC, Globalfoundries), looking to various silicon IP companies to provide technology to enable them to exploit the foundries' manufacturing capability. This model has worked well for development of chips for room temperature operation, however it requires significant updating to create new designs that can work at ultra-cold temperatures. This project brings together world-leading expertise in CMOS design and quantum computing. We will create updated process design kits (PDKs) for cryogenic temperatures and an ecosystem of silicon IP products to enable chip designers to exploit foundries using the established fabless model. Thus the project will enable quantum computing companies to scale their hardware systems to create a new generation of more powerful quantum computers.

There is a global race to build the world's first practical quantum computers. One of the many challenges in building a quantum computer (as well as other quantum technologies including sensors) is shielding the superconducting circuits from ambient magnetic fields. Currently solutions create a large volume and weight of fixed magnetic shields that takes up valuable space and cooling power within a cryostat. These existing large volume shields are difficult to maintain in the limited cooling capacity of a quantum circuit compatible cryostat. This ultimately limits the potential of a quantum computer or quantum sensor to scale to commercial levels. The commonly employed solution to this problem is to use a combination of high permeability and superconducting shields around the device. As superconducting circuits become larger and more complex the limitations of this approach become more apparent. This project will design, simulate, manufacture, and test a magnetic shielding solution that employs active magnetic shielding. This will confirm the feasibility of employing active magnetic shielding for quantum processors within a cryostat to reduce the weight and size overheads associated with current state-of-the-art shielding methods. The use of active magnetic shielding is an entirely novel approach within quantum computing, though it has been successfully utilised for alternative technologies, including quantum gravity sensors. This project is taking an established method and applying it to an entirely new technology area that has highly specific and challenging magnetic shield requirements. The novelty will be in demonstrating that these strict performance requirements can be delivered using cryogenic passive shielding and active magnetic shielding, thus demonstrating a clear path to scaling the technology to commercial levels. Success in this project would represent a significant disruption to the current state-of-the-art approaches to quantum computing platform development.

Advanced production capabilities have allowed conventional electronics based on semiconductors to become more powerful and support almost all technologies we use today, from laptops to washing machines and cutting edge medical equipment. But semiconductors are now facing hard limits as the miniaturisation of components reaches closer to the atomic scale. The limitations of these classical circuits can be overcome with quantum circuits, which utilise all the tricks of nature to open up areas in sensing, security and information processing technology that previously remained elusive. One of the most successful ways of building these quantum circuits is with superconductors, which can be built with many of the tools already used for conventional electronics and allow for a large degree of customisation to be applied to almost any area within quantum technology. Building these superconducting circuits is currently a challenging feat, requiring close to atomic level accuracy of circuit writing and total isolation from any radiation, contamination and defects that would otherwise disturb the delicate quantum state of these circuits. Furthemore, accessing cryogenic equipment and state-of-the-art electronics for verification also presents a significant up-front investment. The capacity to produce these circuits is therefore confined to academic and national labs, and a very small number of secretive commercial ventures. Whilst there are many potential business opportunities ready to be exploited in this space, the superconducting circuits' production challenges present a large barrier to entry to most companies in the UK. They simply do not have the resources available to catch-up and compete with commercially available solutions. Fortunately, the UK is home to world-leading experts in the manufacture and validation of high quality superconducting circuits, and to world-class commercial partners across the whole supply chain from production to integration and measurement. Together we are bringing the capability to produce superconducting circuits at commercial scale and quality, for a nascent quantum economy that is about to rapidly expand. To provide lower barriers to entry and empower UK-based ventures, we will develop R&D centres for businesses, as well as foundries for the purchase of superconducting devices and access to testing equipment. This unique extra capability will empower the UK as a hub for technology based on superconducting circuits, bringing in jobs and investment, and delivering a domestic supply of a technology with many strategic benefits.

Without an operating system, computers would be much less useful. Before the invention of operating systems, computers could only run one calculation at a time. All tasks had to be scheduled by hand. Operating systems automate the scheduling of tasks and make sure that resources such as memory and disk space are allocated properly. Because operating systems simplify computers, everyone can handle them and benefit from them. Quantum computers are a new type of powerful computer. Big and high-quality quantum computers can outperform conventional computers at specific tasks, such as predicting the properties of a drug. Currently, it is difficult for users to interact with quantum computers because there is no good operating system. The systems that exist don't schedule tasks optimally and cannot perform calculations quickly. Building this operating system is difficult -- many have tried and no solutions have worked. We have invented an operating system to overcome this technical challenge: NISQ.OS. While competitors present quantum computers as a "black box", NISQ.OS exposes all its different elements. Many of them look far more familiar than you might think. Quantum computers consist of a quantum processing unit, which contains the qubits, a couple of layers of special-purpose chips that control the qubits, and a conventional computer for overall control. By providing access to all these layers of the "quantum computing stack", we give the user the power to schedule tasks in an optimal way. This will improve the performance of quantum computers by a 1,000-fold compared to other leading approaches. Once we integrate hardware and software tightly, we expect that the performance will improve by 1,000,000-fold. We have assembled a group of experts from across the UK to build the operating system. This includes the UK's leading quantum hardware companies, Hitachi, Oxford Quantum Circuits, SeeQC, Duality Quantum Photonics, Oxford Ionics, and Universal Quantum; Riverlane, a quantum software company; Arm, a UK-based chip manufacturer; and the National Physical Laboratory. The National Physical Laboratory plays an important role because their expertise lies in developing technical standards for breakthrough technology. To build our operating system, we need to define a new standard interface between software and hardware that everyone can use. Our project will attract many important customers, such as pharmaceutical or chemical companies, as well as the financial industry. Because our operating system is so much better, they will want to run their applications on UK-based quantum computers.

Superconducting quantum technology, currently regarded worldwide as the leading candidate architecture for the creation of a quantum computer, requires ultra-low temperatures close to 10 milliKelvin. Access to such low temperatures has until now relied on large research-scale cryogenic platforms that typically occupy several tens of square meters of floorspace, and require either Helium liquefaction plant or high-power 3-phase electricity and water cooling. These cost and infrastructure requirements are significant barriers to the marketisation of quantum computing technologies. Commercial cryocooler systems reaching temperatures below 4K are now available in a compact, mobile format that requires only single-phase domestic electrical supply. This creates the technical opportunity to access ultra-low temperatures using compact add-on modules to provide the next-step cooling from 4K down to milliKelvin temperatures. All necessary technological solutions are, in principle, already available for such 'desktop' quantum technology, but they have never before been integrated together into a low-power, low-cost cooling platform designed for quantum computing applications. Demonstrating the feasibility of such a product is the central aim of this project. By dramatically cutting both the capital and operational cost of quantum computing, this development would hugely accelerate its deployment, for example, in hospitals, banks, ports and airports, in both fixed and 'mobile' field-based applications. The project leaders, Chase Research Cryogenics (CRC) are leading world experts in self-contained cryocooler modules operating from 1K to 0.1K and have an established track record of designing and manufacturing instruments for academics, research institutions and quantum technology companies around the world. CRC will work closely with project partners SeeQC.UK, a company specialising in the development of a cryogenic qubit controller that forms the core of practical quantum computing resources. CRC and SeeQC.UK will together explore and demonstrate the feasibility of operating the SeeQC.UK quantum technology on CRC's novel cooling platform. Meeting the major challenge of extending CRC's current cooling technology to millikelvin temperatures will require us to unlock the deep specialist knowledge currently residing in the world-leading low-temperature research groups in UK universities, and transfer their know-how into the commercial world. This project will therefore bring together, for the first time, academic and commercial partners in a unique team, encompassing a unique range of knowledge, skills and expertise that could revolutionize the potential for commercialisation of quantum computing.

SeeQC is developing an advanced quantum computing platform. To rapidly develop this platform, we must solve the challenge of how to efficiently measure and analyse the performance of SeeQC and other emerging state-of-the-art quantum computing platforms. Measurements and benchmarking must be performed via a method that can impartially compare and contrast the key performance metrics that underpin the performance of SeeQC hardware and that of our competitors. Only via rigorous and impartial benchmarking of Quantum Processor Units (QPUs), will SeeQC prove the competitive advantage of our technology to our customer base.