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Kvantify, a Copenhagen-based quantum software startup, has successfully closed a 10 million seed round. This funding will enable the startup to strengthen its position as a global leader in quantum computing, focusing initially on life sciences applications. The round is led by Danish VC Dreamcraft, alongside biotech investor Lundbeckfonden BioCapital and the private investment company 2degrees, with participation from Redstone VC, 2xN, and EIFO. Kvantify plans to use the investment to accelerate the development of quantum solutions for drug discovery and chemical simulation, aiming to address complex problems and expand applicability across various industries. This strategic funding will enhance Kvantifys innovative capabilities, ensuring a significant impact on the life sciences sector and beyond.

Kvantify is dedicated to harnessing the power of quantum computing to solve complex scientific and industrial challenges. With a strong emphasis on life sciences, Kvantify develops advanced quantum algorithms and high-performance computing solutions aimed at revolutionizing drug discovery and chemical simulation. Their mission is to make quantum technology accessible and valuable to businesses worldwide, driving innovation and efficiency in various sectors. Leveraging an interdisciplinary team and cutting-edge technology, Kvantify is positioned at the forefront of the quantum computing revolution.

The seed round is notable not only for its substantial size but also for the strategic match of the new investors to Kvantifys mission. It is led by Danish VC Dreamcraft, together with biotech investor Lundbeckfonden BioCapital and the private investment company 2degrees. Other notable investors include international sector-focused tech investor Redstone VC, Danish lead quantum VC 2xN as well as EIFO.

Lundbeckfonden BioCapital is a large Danish investor focused on local life science companies, supporting the translation and commercialization of ground-breaking science. This is Lundbeckfonden BioCapitals first investment outside the therapeutics space.

With our investment in Kvantify, we are broadening our footprint in and commitment to further strengthening the Danish life science ecosystem. Quantum computing can deliver accuracy and derisking to the early stages of drug development to a level not possible with classical computers, thereby enabling faster speed to market. We are therefore excited about this opportunity and look forward to working with the Kvantify team to bridge quantum computing and drug development to the future benefit of patients, said Jacob Falck Hansen, Partner at Lundbeckfonden BioCapital.

Danish VC Dreamcraft invests in tech-driven companies, from pre-seed to series A, and has a proven track record with B2B SaaS software.

Were thrilled to partner with the team at Kvantify as they take a significant step forward in their mission to fulfill the promise of industrial applications of quantum computers. The potential of quantum chemical computational drug discovery is massive and represents a truly exciting beachhead market. We cannot wait to see how Kvantify will help solve todays seemingly impossible problems and serve as a crucial tool in designing the solutions of the future. says Carsten Salling, General Partner at Dreamcraft.

Redstone QAI Quantum Fund is a highly specialized venture capital fund that focuses on investing in groundbreaking technologies within the quantum technologies sector.

Kvantifys focus on applying quantum computing to life sciences and further industrial use cases across various sectors aligns with our strategic vision of advancing practical and impactful quantum solutions. With their interdisciplinary team, in-depth knowledge of quantum technology, and innovative approach to enhancing computational efficiency, Kvantify is perfectly placed to bring tremendous value to commercial markets, says Marco Stutz, Partner at Redstone.

In light of their successful product launch for a groundbreaking drug discovery tool, Hans Henrik Knudsen, CEO of Kvantify, comments:

On behalf of the founding team, we are incredibly excited about the completion of our 10 million seed round, which marks a significant milestone for Kvantify. This funding not only validates our vision of leveraging quantum computing to revolutionize the life sciences industry but also provides us with the resources and strategic partnerships needed to accelerate our development and growth. With the support of new and existing investors, we are well-positioned to continue to bring groundbreaking solutions to market.

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Continued here:
Danish startup secures 10M seed to advance quantum computing in life sciences - ArcticStartup

Quantum computers do not work like traditional computers. Instead of using microscopic transistors, which can represent either ones or zeros, they use particles known as qubits.

Unlike transistors, qubits can exist in multiple states at a time, allowing them to perform different types of calculations. The theory of quantum entanglement allows many qubits to be linked, allowing for an even larger number of computations.

Traditional computers are more or less limited by the laws of classical physics; quantum computers are not.

There are several ways to make qubits, and popular methods include using trapped ions or particles within superconductors.

PsiQuantum believes the best approach is using individual photons as qubits, by manipulating single particles of light. While this is among the most difficult methods of quantum computing, PsiQuantum made a bet that it was ultimately the most practical for large scale quantum computers because of the existing infrastructure built around photonics.

It has partnered with one of the biggest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, Global Foundries, to produce photonic computers with enough fidelity to work with individual photons.

Another major advantage of using photons as qubits is that photons can operate at room temperature. Most other supercomputers require extremely cold temperatures, making them impractical at scale.

PsiQuantums method still requires refrigeration, but not nearly as much as other methods. As a result, it plans to build its quantum computers inside cryogenic cabinets built by a company that makes meat lockers.

Those units are then networked together to increase the total number of qubits. By the end of 2027, PsiQuantum plans to have a quantum computer with 1 million qubits. The largest quantum computers today have about 1,000.

With 1 million qubits, PsiQuantum believes it can perform error correction, essentially making up for mistakes made by the qubits. Traditional computers also require error correction, but in the case of quantum computers, the majority of qubits are used for this task. Shadbolt said that sucks, but thats tough luck.

Networking the refrigerated units together was another hurdle for PsiQuantum. It needed to achieve a breakthrough in photonic switching, essentially sending photons back and forth with an unprecedented amount of fidelity, allowing very few photons to escape.

PsiQuantum revealed some of how it has achieved this in a paper that appeared online Friday.

Read more:
Australia bets on US startup that aims to build the first massive quantum computer - Semafor

The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley.

Half of the funding will come from the Queensland government, and in exchange, PsiQuantum will locate its planned quantum computer in Brisbane, with a regional headquarters at Brisbane Airport.

PsiQuantum claims it will build the worlds first useful quantum computer. Such a device could be enormously helpful for applications like cracking codes, discovering new materials and drugs, modelling climate and weather, and solving other tough computational problems.

Companies around the world and several national governments are racing to be the first to solve the quantum computing puzzle. How likely is it Australias bet on PsiQuantum will pay off?

Quantum computers are computers that run quantum algorithms. These are step-by-step sets of instructions that change data encoded with quantum information. (Ordinary computers run digital algorithms, step-by-step sets of instructions that change digital information.)

Digital computers represent information as long strings of 1s and 0s. Quantum computers represent information as long lists of numbers. Over the past century, scientists have discovered these numbers are naturally encoded in fine details of energy and matter.

Read more: Hype and cash are muddying public understanding of quantum computing

Quantum computing operates fundamentally differently from traditional computing. It uses principles of quantum physics and may be able to perform calculations that are not feasible for digital computers.

We know that quantum algorithms can solve some problems with far fewer steps than digital algorithms. However, to date nobody has built a quantum computer that can run quantum algorithms in a reliable way.

Researchers around the world are trying to build quantum computers using different kinds of technology.

PsiQuantums approach uses individual particles of light called photons to process quantum data. Photon-based quantum computers are expected to be less prone to errors than other kinds.

The Australian government has also invested around A$40 million in Sydney-based Silicon Quantum Computing. This company aims to encode quantum data in tiny particles trapped in silicon and other familiar materials used in current electronics.

A third approach is trapped ions individually captured electrically charged atomic particles, which have the advantage of being inherently stable and all identical. A company called IonQ is one taking this track.

However, many believe the current leading approach is artificial atoms based on superconducting circuits. These can be customised with different properties. This is the approach taken by Google, IBM, and Rigetti.

There is no clear winning technology. Its likely that a hybrid approach will eventually prevail.

The timeline set by PsiQuantum and supported by federal endorsements aims for an operational quantum computer by 2029. Some see this projected timeline as overly optimistic, since three years ago PsiQuantum was planning to meet a deadline of 2025.

Progress in quantum technology has been steady since its inception nearly three decades ago. But there are many challenges yet to overcome in creating a device that is both large enough to be useful and not prone to errors.

The announcement represents a significant commitment to advancing quantum computing technology both within Australian borders and worldwide. It falls under the Albanese governments Future Made in Australia policy.

However, the investment risks being overshadowed by a debate over transparency and the selection process.

Criticisms have pointed to a lack of detailed public disclosure about why PsiQuantum was chosen over local competitors.

Read more: Australia may spend hundreds of millions of dollars on quantum computing research. Are we chasing a mirage?

These concerns underscore the need for a more open dialogue about government spending and partnership selections to maintain public trust in such large-scale technological investments.

Public trust is difficult to establish when little to no effort has been made to educate people in quantum technology. Some claim that quantum literacy will be a 21st-century skill on par with digital literacy.

Australia has made its quantum hardware bet. But even if the hardware works as planned, it will only be useful if we have people who know how to use it and that means training in quantum theory and software.

The Australian Quantum Software Network, a collaboration of more than 130 of the nations leading researchers in quantum algorithms, software, and theory including myself was launched in late 2022 to achieve this.

The government says the PsiQuantum project is expected to create up to 400 specialised jobs, retaining and attracting new highly skilled talent to both the state and country. The media release also contains the dramatic forecast that success could lead to up to an additional $48 billion in GDP and 240,000 new jobs in Australia by 2040.

Efforts like the Sydney Quantum Academy, the Australian Centre for Quantum Growth, and my own quantum education startup Eigensystems, which recently launched the Quokka personal quantum computing and quantum literacy platform, will help to meet this goal.

In the coming decade, education and training will be crucial, not only to support this investment but also to expand Australias expertise so that it may become a net exporter in the quantum industry and a substantial player in the global race for a quantum computer.

See the article here:
Australia just made a billion-dollar bet on building the world's first 'useful' quantum computer in Brisbane. Will it pay off? - The Conversation

We highlight the vibrant discussions on quantum computing and quantum algorithms that took place at the 2024 American Physical Society March Meeting and invite submissions that notably drive the field of quantum information science forward.

The American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting is arguably one of the largest annual physics conferences of the world, and this years edition which was held in Minneapolis, USA on 38 March hosted over 10,000 scientists and students from around the globe, offering a rich platform to exchange novel ideas and breakthroughs that advance the field of physics. The meeting undoubtedly covered a comprehensive range of topics, of which many are of particular interest to our computational science community, such as electronic structure of materials, the dynamics of complex systems, and self-driving materials labs. Here, we focus on the stimulating discussions on quantum information science and its applications to various domains, given the growing interest and the multitude of avenues of future research in this area.

Credit: da-kuk / E+ / Getty Images

While quantum information science1 has recently seen myriad relevant advancements, many challenges still persist. A pressing issue in the field is the high level of noise in quantum bits (qubits), resulting in an error rate of about 102 to 103, which is much larger than the ideal error rate (1015) required for the successful implementation of large-scale quantum algorithms in practical applications. As such, overcoming the effects of noise remains the foremost challenge for advancing the field. At the APS meeting, a total of 14 sessions possibly the most attended ones in the event, at least to the eye of our editor in attendance were devoted to quantum error correction (QEC) and quantum error mitigation. For instance, the discussions surrounding QEC primarily focused on reducing time and qubit overheads. Among the numerous candidates, low-density parity-check codes emerged as one of the popular protocols for achieving low-overhead error correction2. During the Kavli Foundation Special Symposium, Mikhail Lukin, a professor of physics at Harvard University, emphasized the importance of optimized error-correction codes and highlighted the need for co-designing these codes with quantum algorithms and native hardware capabilities in order to achieve fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Another important and well-received focus at the conference was the application of quantum algorithms in noisy quantum computers, with the goal of demonstrating advantages of quantum computing in practical applications prior to achieving fault-tolerance. One such algorithm is quantum machine learning (QML)3, which embeds machine learning within the framework of quantum mechanics. A pivotal point of discussion in the conference revolved around how to practically harness QMLs strengths, such as its low training cost and efficient scalability. While QML has the potential to accelerate data analysis, especially when applied to quantum data from sources such as quantum sensors3, understanding its limitations and developing theoretically sound approaches are imperative tasks for achieving advantage in practical problems. In addition, proper considerations of practical constraints, such as bottlenecks in quantum data loading and the effects of noise, are equivalently important for algorithm design.

Efforts from the industry for advancing quantum information technology did not go unnoticed during the 2024 APS March Meeting either. Companies such as Google Quantum AI, AWS Center for Quantum Computing, IBM Quantum, Quantinuum, and QuEra Computing Inc. among others have been making substantial contributions to various aspects of quantum computing, from software and algorithm design to hardware advancements, such as the logical quantum processor with neural atom array4 and the 32-qubit trapped-ion system5. Furthermore, industrial partners play a crucial role in helping to identify pertinent problems for quantum algorithms, including, but not limited to, in the domains of physical sciences6,7, biological sciences8, and finance9.

At Nature Computational Science, we are keen on publishing studies that span a wide range of topics within quantum information science. Our interest extends from fundamental research aimed at the realization of quantum computing, including the development of codes such as QEC, to studies that deepen our understanding of quantum algorithms and contribute to the broader theoretical framework of quantum computing10,11. Furthermore, we are interested in well-motivated studies that apply quantum algorithms on real quantum computers for solving real-world, practical problems, showcasing clear advantages derived from quantum effects12,13. By fostering an ongoing dialogue on quantum computing and its implications in diverse fields, Nature Computational Science strives to contribute to the advancement of quantum information science and its transformative impact on society.

Read this article:
Harnessing quantum information to advance computing - Nature.com

The Japanese government has announced plans to expand export restrictions on technologies related to semiconductors and quantum computing.

According to a Bloomberg report, impacted technologies include scanning electron microscopes and gate-all-around transistors, which companies including Samsung Electronics have been using to improve semiconductor design.

The report added that the Japanese government will also start requiring licenses for the shipment of quantum computers and cryogenic CMOS circuits, which are used to control the input and output signals of qubits in quantum computers.

Favored trading partners of Japan, including South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, will not be exempt from the new rules, which are expected to come into force in July following a period of public consultation.

At the start of 2023, it was reported that Japan, alongside the Netherlands, had agreed to comply with a number of US-led restrictions relating to the exportation of high-tech chipmaking technology to China.

See the rest here:
Japan to expand export restrictions on semiconductor and quantum computing technology - DatacenterDynamics