Quantum brilliance entered the quantum computing market in 2019 with an ambitious vision to apply synthetic diamond technology for quantum accelerators. The Australian-based company’s approach is intended to circumvent the need for superconducting infrastructure or microscale laser manipulation, freeing up quantum systems to operate at the edge of the network — and even the edge of space.
The company today announced a $18 million fundraising effort from investors including Breakthrough Victoria, Main Sequence, Investible, Ultratech Capital, MA Financial, Jelix Ventures, Rampersand and CM Equity.
That will aid its efforts to reduce the footprint needed for quantum computing, and will pursue collaborations such as last year’s pact with Nvidia to develop a hybrid quantum-classical computing platform.
The company is also considering launching several software products before 2023 in addition to field trials of their hardware.
Founded by Marcus Doherty, Andre Horsley And Mark Louwho are experts in diamond quantum science technology, the translation of quantum technology and the development of startup and innovation companies respectively, the Australian National University spin-off positions itself as a global developer of miniaturized room-temperature quantum computing products and solutions.
In the past four years, Quantum Brilliance has grown from three founders to over 90 people in Australia and Germany. It is built around centers for some of the world’s leading talents in diamond quantum technology, semiconductors and high-performance computing, and has roughly equal footing in every country.
Understand full-stack quantum technology
Quantum Brilliance mainly offers hardware, software and emulation products. The Quantum Development Kit is the early prototype of the hardware. It’s a 19-inch unit, about the size of a desktop computer, that works like a fully functional quantum computer at room temperature. It integrates with various computer systems, does not require cryogenic or vacuum chambers to operate, and currently contains two qubits.
The role of the Quantum Development Kit is to enable early adopters of quantum technology to experiment with integration hardware into existing systems, such as high-performance computing environments or autonomous vehicles.
The goal of Quantum Brilliance is quantum capability that is not just limited to supercomputing environments, but can be applied to any use case where classical hardware can be accelerated by edge quantum technology – i.e. robotics, autonomous vehicles or satellites.
“With Quantum Brilliance’s Software Development Kit and powerful Quantum Emulator, users are currently able to find, develop and validate applications where quantum hardware offers advantages over classical computers of similar size, weight and power. [or SWaP]said Marcus Doherty, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Quantum Brilliance.
The next frontier of quantum application development is particularly relevant for edge applications, where the Quantum Emulator can emulate real quantum hardware with relatively low SWaP and allow users to determine the number of qubits where quantum hardware outperforms classical peripherals, he added .
Going forward, Quantum Brilliance will seek to accelerate tasks across a wide range of use cases, such as computational chemistry, database management, logistics optimization, edge signal image processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence at the edge, human-machine interfacing, and autonomous motion planning in autonomous vehicles .
“All require either many quantum computers working together or distributed quantum computers embedded in edge systems. The primary goal in any use case is to leverage Quantum Brilliance’s edge quantum accelerator hardware to deliver the required computational power density within SWaP constraints,” Doherty said.
Hub for diamond quantum materials research
Quantum Brilliance has the Diamond Quantum Materials Research Center in Victoria, Australia, in April 2022 to accelerate the development of diamond quantum computers, specifically the materials technology needed to realize an integrated quantum chip. This hub was started with leading quantum diamond institutions La Trobe University and RMIT University to improve the computational power of synthetic diamond-based quantum computers with techniques that can be ported to high-volume production systems.
“Quantum Brilliance has already invested more than $3 million in the Research Hub, which has been complemented by government funding and has resulted in new capabilities and new jobs in Victoria and the core of what could become a Quantum Diamond Foundry in Melbourne,” said Doherty . With the new funds, the company plans to expand the hub and continue to work with its research partners to develop the industry Ph.D. positions in Victoria to build the next generation of talent in Australia.
As things stand, Australia is already known as a global leader in quantum science and technology research, thanks to early and sustained national investment over the past two decades. In the past five years, it has also seen a fast-growing quantum industry with some of the top performing and distinguished quantum computing startups such as Q-CTRL, Silicon Quantum Computing, dirak and Quantum Brilliance; as well as major investments from established companies such as Google and IBM to establish technology and capture talent in Australia. This was supported by a very active and quantum-aware local venture capital market and global connections.
“With this new investment in Quantum Brilliance, along with other recent investments in Australian-based quantum technology companies, Australia is preparing to become a much bigger player in the quantum computing industry than it has been in the traditional computing industry. industry,” said Doug Finke, analyst for Global Quantum Intelligence.
“An interesting factor in today’s quantum landscape is the diversity of approaches to provide quantum-based solutions that can provide a quantum advantage over classical computers. This is a good thing because the technology is difficult and a variety of approaches will increase the chance of success for the industry as a whole.”
Finke said several of the Australian-based startups are indeed pursuing their own path to quantum acceleration, citing Quantum Brilliance with its synthetic diamond-based approach as a good example.
Diamond quantum technology joins an ever-expanding field of quantum technologies that are just beginning to come online. More prominent approaches to date include gate-based superconducting quantum computers, ion trapping machines, neutral atom quantum computers, and others. In the synthetic diamond space, Quantum Brilliance is joined by pioneers in computing and sensing technologies, such as Nvision, Quantum Diamond Technologies Inc. and others.
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