The partnership aims to develop a future generation of ion traps and will look to drive the acceleration of quantum computing and enable progress in fields such as generative chemistry, material science, and artificial intelligence.
“Partnering with Quantinuum, a leader in quantum computing, we will be able to push the boundaries of quantum computing and generate larger, more powerful machines that solve meaningful real-life problems," said Richard Kuncic, Senior Vice President and General Manager Power Systems at Infineon Technologies. “This collaboration brings together Infineon's state-of-the-art knowledge in process development, fabrication, and quantum processing unit (QPU) technology with Quantinuum's cutting-edge ion-trap design expertise and experience with operating high-performance commercial quantum computers.”
Infineon has established a dedicated team to make trapped-ion quantum processing units (QPUs) and the company has invested in this field since 2017, applying its expertise in high-volume processing technologies and developing technologies, like integrated photonics and control electronics, to enable their partners to scale the qubit count of their machines.
Quantinuum’s hardware approach involves trapping charged atoms with electromagnetic fields so they can be manipulated and encoded with information using microwave signals and lasers. This design has distinct advantages over other quantum hardware, including higher fidelities and longer coherence times.
The collaboration looks to build on the performance of Quantinuum's trapped-ion quantum computers, which currently hold world records in key performance benchmarks such as 2-qubit gate fidelity, quantum volume and cross-entropy benchmark fidelity.
However, to deliver even better fidelity at greater scale and achieve commercial advantage, larger and more sophisticated ion traps are needed.
Engineers from the two companies have been working together for more than a year and will intensify their efforts under the current partnership to develop powerful ion traps for Quantinuum’s next-generation quantum computers.
“At Quantinuum, our mission is to accelerate useful quantum computing. We have announced a roadmap to reach universal fault-tolerance in 2029 and our partnership with Infineon is key to our delivering on this commitment,” said Dr. Rajeeb Hazra, President and CEO of Quantinuum
