Working to make quantum computing more scalable and fault tolerant, Quantum Source raises $12M

Israeli-based company Quantum Source announced today that it raised a $12M seed extension investment, bringing its seed round total to $27M and making it one of the largest total seed financings in the field of quantum computing.

Founded in 2021 by a group of experienced professionals in the semiconductor and physics fields, Quantum Source is working to develop quantum systems that are fault tolerant and scalable to millions of qubits. In theory, these systems will have the capability to execute quantum algorithms with a negligible probability of errors, making quantum computation useful in many industries, including new drug development, material science, AI processing and cyber and defense applications.

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Oded Melamed, cofounder and CEO of Quantum Source, said that while the quantum computing field is currently limited to small quantum computers with tens or hundreds of qubits, he believes photonics is the best approach to achieving large-scale, fault-tolerant and valuable quantum computers. 

Scalable, compact and manageable quantum computers

Per Melamed, one of the key challenges associated with implementing photonics-based quantum computing is the inefficient and probabilistic process required for generating entangled cluster states, which serve as the “fuel” for photonic quantum computers. This necessitates large-scale circuit duplication, as well as the implementation of intricate monitoring and control systems. At present, a quantum system with one million qubits would likely require an area equivalent to that of a basketball court.

“At Quantum Source, we use unique Cavity-QED–based technology to drastically increase the efficiency of this entangled photonic cluster generation. Specifically, by utilizing single atoms on a photon chip to both generate single photons and to entangle them into a cluster, we can increase the efficiency of this crucial process by 5 orders of magnitude,” Melamed said.

Melamed believes their approach is a substantial departure from other implementations, resulting in a significantly more scalable, compact and manageable system. Furthermore, the fact that the entire system operates at room temperature reduces the complexity and dimensions of their solution.

“We think quantum computing has the potential to instigate a tech revolution in entire industries thanks to the enormous, unprecedented computing power,” said Omri Green, partner at Dell Technologies Capital.

Quantum Source plans to utilize the Cavity-QED–generated quantum gates for production of midsize clusters of entangled photons that serve as the resource-state needed for photonic quantum computation. The ultimate goal is to demonstrate further entanglement and subsequent measurements of these clusters to establish large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers with millions of qubits. 

The funding was led by Dell Technologies Capital with participation from 10D, as well as existing investors Eclipse VC, Grove Ventures, and Pitango First. Quantum Source says it will be allocated toward expanding the research and development team, among other things.