PsiQuantum, the Palo Alto based quantum computing firm, has just raised US$1 billion in a Series E funding round, bringing its valuation to around US$7 billion, to advance its goal of building the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers with around one million physical qubits. The money will support constructing utility-scale quantum computing sites in Brisbane, Australia, and Chicago, Illinois, as well as deploying large prototype systems to test architecture, integration, cooling, and networking. PsiQuantum is leaning on photonic qubits (using photons/light rather than predominantly superconducting circuits), semiconductor industry-style fab manufacturing (including GlobalFoundries), and novel materials like Barium Titanate (BTO) for high-performance optical switching; it’s also engineering cooling and inter-chip networking to look more like data-center-scale infrastructure than lab-based prototypes.
Sources: PsiQuantum, Reuters
Key Takeaways
– Scale & Ambition: This isn’t incremental improvement — PsiQuantum is aiming for a full leap to million-qubit, fault-tolerant machines, which would be a radical jump from current quantum systems often in the hundreds or thousands of qubits without full error correction.
– Manufacturing & Materials: Success depends heavily on integrating photonic qubit systems with high-volume semiconductor fabrication, and using materials like BTO for optical switches. The approach tries to leverage the existing semiconductor/fiber-optic infrastructure.
– Infrastructure & Timeline: The $1B funding is earmarked to build sites (Brisbane & Chicago), prototype large-scale systems, and deliver utility-scale quantum computing. The work involves solving tough challenges around cooling, interconnects (networking between quantum modules), and control systems.
In-Depth
PsiQuantum is staking out one of the boldest bets in the quantum computing race: building fault-tolerant quantum computers at a scale of one million physical qubits. The recent $1 billion Series E raise isn’t just for incremental improvements—it’s aimed at getting across a major threshold. What makes this different is how the company is addressing the classic stumbling blocks of quantum systems: error correction, manufacturability, cooling, and interconnects.
Photonic qubits are at the heart of its approach. Instead of relying primarily on superconducting qubits (which often need extreme cryogenics and complex wiring), photonic qubits use light, which can be routed, manipulated, and detected in ways that may scale more cleanly. PsiQuantum is pushing forward with its “Omega” quantum photonic chipset, fabricated in high-volume fabs (GlobalFoundries being a key partner), integrating essential components like single-photon sources, detectors, and high-speed optical switches. The addition of Barium Titanate (BTO) into its manufacturing flow for optical switching is particularly significant—it can enable low-loss, high-speed modulation, a component often cited as a bottleneck for photonics-based quantum systems.
Furthermore, PsiQuantum is not designing for a lab bench; it’s designing for utility-scale. Cooling and control systems are being envisioned more like racks in data centers rather than isolated cryostats. Networking between quantum cabinets using standard telecom fiber is part of the plan. The sites in Brisbane and Chicago will serve as ground zero for validating the architecture in real-world conditions. Of course, hurdles remain: maintaining coherence, reducing loss (both optical and coupling), achieving high fidelities for qubit operations, and making error correction practical at million-qubit scale are still unsolved engineering challenges.
In sum, PsiQuantum’s strategy is conservative in that it leans on existing semiconductor and photonics industries, but aggressive in scale. If successful, the payoff could be transformative in fields ranging from materials science to pharmaceuticals to cryptography. But the timeline is tight, the engineering complexity is high, and the proof will be in delivering reliable, fault-tolerant hardware.