The two companies are now manufacturing the silicon photonic and electronic chips that will form the foundation of the Q1 system, the first system milestone in PsiQuantum’s roadmap to deliver a commercially viable quantum computer with one million qubits (the basic unit of quantum information) and beyond.
PsiQuantum and GF have been able to demonstrate the ability - a world first - to manufacture core quantum components, such as single-photon sources and single-photon detectors, with precision and in volume, using the standard manufacturing processes available at GF’s semiconductor fab. The companies have also installed proprietary production and manufacturing equipment in two of GF’s 300mm fabs to produce thousands of Q1 silicon photonic chips at its facility in upstate New York, and state-of-the-art electronic control chips at its Fab 1 facility in Dresden, Germany.
Quantum computing is expected to deliver extraordinary advances across a multitude of industries including pharmaceutical development, materials science, renewable energy, climate mitigation and sustainable agriculture.
“In the past year, we have experienced a decade of technological change. Now, due to the digital transformation and the explosion of data we are faced with problems that require quantum computing to further accelerate the Renaissance of Compute,” said Amir Faintuch, senior vice president and general manager of Compute and Wired Infrastructure at GF. “PsiQuantum and GF’s partnership is a powerful combination of PsiQuantum’s photonic quantum computing expertise and GF’s silicon photonics manufacturing capability.”
GF’s silicon photonics manufacturing platform will enable PsiQuantum to develop quantum chips that can be measured and tested for long-term performance reliability.
This is critical to be able to execute quantum algorithms, which require millions or billions of gate operations and PsiQuantum is currently collaborating with researchers, scientists and developers at leading companies to explore and test quantum use cases across a range of industries.
“This is a major achievement for both the quantum and semiconductor industries, demonstrating that it’s possible to build the critical components of a quantum computer on a silicon chip, using the standard manufacturing processes of a semiconductor fab,” said Pete Shadbolt, chief strategy officer and co-founder of PsiQuantum.
"Together with GF, we have validated the manufacturing path for silicon photonics and are confident that by the middle of this decade, PsiQuantum will have completely stood up all the manufacturing lines and processes necessary to begin assembling a final machine.”
