The move will enable Zapata to work more closely with projects restricted by export control laws or driven by the UK government, such as the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) and the Department of Trade and Industry, as well as with local universities and enterprise customers. Zapata has existing offices in Boston and Toronto and presence in Japan.
“As both a hotbed of innovation and a nerve centre of the global economy, the United Kingdom is a natural place for us to expand our presence,” said Christopher Savoie, Zapata’s CEO. “Deepening customer and partner relationships in the UK allows us to work more closely with global organisations to develop production-ready quantum applications. These solutions leverage the best in classical computing and current quantum devices and techniques for impact today - but are also built to accommodate increases in quantum device capabilities over time.”
Operating in the UK will mean that Zapata will be able to offer its Orquestra platform to UK-based and potentially other European enterprises, government projects and universities looking to build quantum-classical software in quantum machine learning, optimisation and simulation.
With Orquestra, organisations will not have to wait for quantum hardware technology to mature, instead they can create computational workflows leveraging existing NISQ devices that are forward-compatible with more powerful future quantum devices.
Kuano.ai, a British company accelerating drug discovery by combining AI and quantum computing, will be among the first to use Orquestra in the UK.
Kuano CEO Vid Stojevic said, “The Kuano platform uses AI and quantum simulations to design compounds capable of selectively blocking specific enzymes by targeting the quantum transition state of the enzyme catalysis process. Quantum computing has the potential to transform our ability to model quantum hard enzyme transition states, unlocking hugely valuable first-in-class enzyme drug targets."
