Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have said that “very useful quantum computers” are probably still 20 years away, but his company is also making investments and investments in that very area. The partnership avoids risks beyond classic chips.
Now, one of the companies Nvidia is partnering with in quantum development has announced funding. Quantum computing startup SEEQC has raised $30 million in funding, co-led by Booz Allen Ventures and Japanese-European VC firm NordicNinja, with participation from new backer SIP Capital and some existing investors. was procured. SEEQC CEO John Levy said the Series A extension is “a combination of financial, geographic and strategic strength.”
SEEQC is part of an emerging category of startups looking at how to best leverage classical computing to manage quantum processors. This is essential for managing large numbers of qubits, the fundamental unit of quantum computing, while adapting the hardware to the needs of data centers and enterprises.
SEEQC (the name is an acronym for “Scalable and Energy Efficient Quantum Computing'' and is pronounced “seek'') is the key to reducing the complexity of today's quantum hardware: We think it's about having a chip that can power the functionality. . For example, this would allow a single cable to control many qubits, as SEEQC believes is desperately needed.
It is undeniable that today's prototypes, like regular computers in the early days of IT, often look large. Levy thought the announcement about the error-correcting capabilities of Google's Willow quantum chip was “great,” but he also couldn't help but notice the amount of cabling involved.
“We need to see them [types of announcements]But also from a systems engineering perspective, we need to look at the ability to solve cabling issues, speed, latency, cost, etc., the traditional types of things that are needed to be able to build large systems. . “Unless we do that, we can't really scale enterprise-grade quantum data centers,” Levy said.
Rapid advances in AI have already highlighted the critical need for more energy-efficient data centers, which could be enabled by quantum technology, while also accelerating the development of new materials and new medicines. New applications such as
This explains why German chemical company BASF recently partnered with Merck to join the SEEQC-led and UK-backed QuPharma project, which explores how quantum computing can accelerate the drug discovery process. Masu. “These companies know that quantum is going to be central to their business,” Levy said.
This comes after M Ventures, Merck's corporate venture capital arm, invested in SEEQC in 2020, followed by other investors such as EQT Ventures and LG Technology Ventures, who ultimately totaled SEEQC's support before this round. It also explains why it reached $22.4 million.
This is in parallel with SEEQC's partnership with Nvidia. Announced in 2023, the partnership aims to create “an all-digital, ultra-low-latency, chip-to-chip link between quantum computers and GPUs.” Once built, this link will be compatible with all quantum computing technologies.
The new funding will help the startup accelerate commercial deployment of the chip and improve its capabilities. But SEEQC is already ahead of expectations for a startup founded in 2019, largely because the company itself is a spinoff from Hypres, a chip company founded by former employees of IBM's superconducting electronics division. Because it's out.
“We actually operate a mature technology, our own chip foundry, a chip foundry that's very specialized in the kinds of chips that we make. We're working on superconducting IP, and primarily through our U.S. government users. “It's a core team of people who built the whole system,” Levy said.
Since then, the company has tripled the size of its team, with parts of the team based in London, UK, and Naples, Italy, where the first version of the chip was built before the spin-out. But most of it is in Elmsford, New York, where it is currently planning to expand its chip foundry.
Quantum's promise aside, it also resonates with the growing demand for chip supply chains that are resilient to geopolitical tensions, particularly those involving China.
Different companies are approaching this problem from different angles, including photonics, silicon-based chips, and trapped ion qubits. It remains to be seen which approaches will prevail, but Levy believes it's important to think beyond qubits. “We need to have an overall system architecture that actually gets us where we need to go, and chips are going to be right at the heart of that.”