Quantum Source Pilots QC Design’s Plaquette to Accelerate Photonic Fault-Tolerance
JANUARY 23, 2025. Ness Ziona, Israel, and Ulm, Germany.
Quantum Source, a company developing technology for powerful, cost-effective, practical photonic quantum computers, today announced its pilot engagement with QC Design’s Plaquette, a state-of-the-art software tool for designing and optimizing fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures. This collaboration will boost Quantum Source’s capabilities to rigorously simulate, analyze, and refine the photonic fault-tolerance architectures integral to its proprietary large-scale quantum computing platform.
Plaquette helps quantum computing teams advance toward fault tolerance through detailed tools that model, analyze, and address hardware imperfections. Plaquette offers unparalleled precision in modeling the realistic imperfections that could hinder scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing. By incorporating Plaquette into its R&D workflow, Quantum Source will gain valuable insights into key design parameters, helping to explore fault-tolerance strategies more effectively, and accelerate the path toward cost-effective, fault-tolerant photonic quantum computers.
Quantum Source’s deterministic approach to producing and entangling photons—using single atoms trapped on a proprietary photonic chip—dramatically increases efficiency and scalability, offering a viable path to millions of qubits.
Plaquette’s advanced capabilities align with Quantum Source’s long-term mission by aiding in the exploration of new fault-tolerant architectures that are tailored to Quantum Source’s unique platform, enabling a smooth transition between theoretical design and practical, room-temperature photonic quantum hardware.
Dr. Ish Dhand, co-founder and CEO of QC Design, emphasized the significance of the partnership:
❝ Quantum Source's groundbreaking approach to photonic quantum computing represents exactly the kind of innovation Plaquette was designed to support. Our software's ability to simulate thousands of qubits under realistic conditions will help validate and optimize their unique atom-photon architecture. ❞
Dr. Michael Slutsky, Head of Theory Group at Quantum Source, said:
❝ Plaquette's ability to model over 20 hardware imperfections gives us valuable insights into refining our atom-photon architecture. This level of simulation precision, combined with QC Design's deep fault-tolerance expertise, provides us with a significant competitive advantage in developing practical, scalable quantum computers. ❞
The collaboration comes at a pivotal time for both companies. Quantum Source, having recently secured $50M in Series A funding, bringing its total funding to $77M, is rapidly scaling up its technology and advancing towards the commercialization of quantum solutions. QC Design has recently secured €4M from the prestigious EIC Accelerator grant to support the development of Plaquette, a tool that is specifically designed to address the challenges faced by quantum hardware teams in designing for fault tolerance.
This partnership represents a meaningful step forward in the quantum computing industry's quest to achieve practical, fault-tolerant quantum computers. By combining Quantum Source's innovative approach with QC Design's sophisticated design automation tools, both companies are working to accelerate the development of quantum computers that can operate reliably at scale.
About QC Design
QC Design is dedicated to accelerating the path to fault-tolerant quantum computing. Its flagship product, Plaquette, is a design-automation software that simulates, analyzes, and optimizes quantum architectures under realistic conditions with unparalleled accuracy – capturing 20 or more hardware imperfections that can impact performance as opposed to the 2 imperfections captured by open-source alternatives. With deep expertise in fault-tolerance strategies and a suite of advanced tools, QC Design enables quantum hardware teams to design scalable quantum computers faster and at an order of magnitude lower cost than building and maintaining similar software in-house.
About Quantum Source
Quantum Source (QS), located in Ness Ziona Israel, is developing breakthrough technology to enable a commercially viable photonic quantum computer with millions of qubits. The company was established in 2021. Its deterministic entanglement protocols and proprietary photonic chip technology significantly reduce complexity, cost, and footprint. Quantum Source aims to build fault-tolerant quantum systems that scale to millions of qubits and that will have the potential to unleash dramatic acceleration in numerous cutting-edge fields, including drug design, material development, cybersecurity, and the processing of large datasets for AI applications. For more information, please visit: http://www.qs-labs.com/