What are you building, and why now?

Quantum computers hold huge promise for helping us tackle our society’s most challenging problems, those out of reach for today’s classical computers. But to unlock their transformative potential, quantum computers need to scale. At Nu Quantum, we are building the technology to overcome this critical scaling barrier. We develop the networking layer to connect individual quantum processors into a modular, distributed quantum computer. 

What first made you obsessed with this problem?

The scale of the technical challenge with quantum computing is enormous, but so is its potential to accelerate breakthroughs that affect many industries and improve our daily lives. We realised early on that every quantum computing company will need networking to scale their machines; that it is a question of when they need this technology, not if. But at the time, nobody was working on building this critical infrastructure. Nu Quantum addresses this gap, becoming the category-creator for quantum networking to enable distributed quantum computing. 

What did you see that others missed?

Most of the field has pursued scale by building larger and more powerful quantum processors, whilst our focus is on developing the technologies that are needed to weave processors together into a modular computer that is no longer limited to the capacity of a single processor. What people miss is that scaling up and scaling out are not competing approaches: they are complementary. Companies will keep making bigger and better processors and by interconnecting them, we can unlock even more powerful computing machines. Our approach is inspired by classical computing breakthroughs enabled by networking processors, which underpin the Cloud, HPC, and AI industries 

What was the hardest thing to convince people of?

The speed at which the industry is maturing. We are getting closer to commercially useful quantum computers, with practical applications now and in the next five years, and fully disruptive quantum computers in 10 years. This timescale is not actually that long for what will be such a paradigm shift for computing, and industry, investors, and governments need to set the groundwork for this now.

What fundamental breakthrough made this possible?

The number one problem in quantum is scaling. This can only be solved through networking and distributed quantum architectures, to connect multiple quantum processors together, so they behave as a unified, more powerful quantum computer. Previous proof-of-principle experiments have been limited to academic labs.

Nu Quantum is advancing quantum networking state-of-the-art in both performance and scale, delivering world-first quantum networking subsystems: 

Qubit-Photon Interface - the equivalent of today’s Network Interface Cards, to enable quantum computers to be connected to a quantum network.

Quantum Networking Unit - foundational building block for scaling quantum datacenters of the future.

The overall system architecture will be informed by the company’s pioneering work on Distributed Quantum Error Correction. Connecting multiple quantum processors together so they behave as a unified, more powerful quantum computer is very challenging. The proof-of-principle experiments showing this is possible have happened in academia, but their performance is nowhere near where it needs to be for real-world applications. At Nu Quantum, we have built a strong IP portfolio and interdisciplinary engineering team to mature these approaches and build a technology platform that will solve this problem.

Why are you the team to do this? 

Ultimately, talent is the key to success. We are building world-first prototypes for a paradigm-shifting industry, which means that we need an ambitious, creative, and interdisciplinary team to make it happen. Our world-class technical team includes not just physicists, but also engineers from a wide variety of disciplines, including optics, photonics, mechanical, electronics, control, and software. This diversity of experience is essential for innovation, and we are committed to an environment where everyone is welcome and can do their best work.

What has surprised you most since building the company?

The pace of innovation in our industry. People are sometimes sceptical about the timeline for quantum and say that it’s always a decade away, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. There has been huge progress in the quality of quantum processors, especially in the past few years, with big breakthroughs in quantum error correction. Infrastructure giants like NVIDIA have also significantly increased their activity in quantum, which shows that it’s becoming even more of a strategic priority for the computing industry.

How does the world change if you're successful?

Our technology will enable quantum computers to scale to commercially useful sizes. This will have a transformational impact on our ability to address open questions in industries ranging from manufacturing, medicine, energy, and finance. By solving these questions, intractable for classical computers, we will see advances in technologies in ways that seem impossible today.

What does the next 12-24 months unlock?

The next two years are going to be very exciting, as we get closer to demonstrations of our quantum networking hardware with our partners and collaborators. It’s also an important moment for the whole industry, as we see increased procurement of quantum computers and a rise in industry and enterprise end-users who are interested in seeing what quantum can do for them.