QuEra Computing Inc. is a quantum computing company based in
Boston, Massachusetts
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
. The company develops quantum computers using
neutral atoms based on research conducted at both
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
and
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
. QuEra also develops software for simulating systems of Rydberg atoms.
and finding solutions to
Combinatorial Optimization
Combinatorial optimization is a subfield of mathematical optimization that consists of finding an optimal object from a finite set of objects, where the set of feasible solutions is discrete or can be reduced to a discrete set. Typical combina ...
problems.
QuEra actively conducts research in
Condensed Matter Physics
Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...
and combinatorial optimization using neutral atoms as well.
History
QuEra Computing was founded by
Mikhail Lukin
Mikhail Lukin (); born 10 October 1971) is a Russian theoretical and experimental physicist and a professor at Harvard University. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.
Early life
Mikhail "Misha" Lukin was born in M ...
, Vladan Vuletić,
Markus Greiner
Markus Greiner is a German physicist and Professor of Physics at Harvard University.
Greiner studied under the Nobel Laureate Theodor Hänsch at the Ludwig-Maximilians University and at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics, where he rec ...
, Dirk Englund, Nathan Gemelke, and John Pena in 2018.
Prior to QuEra’s founding, research into using and controlling neutral atoms had already started in 2015 at Harvard and MIT, culminating in a 51-qubit machine which later led to the development of a 256-qubit machine.
On October 24th 2024, the
Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center
Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) is an intercollegiate high-performance computing facility located in Holyoke, Massachusetts, connected to that city's municipal fiber grid and powered by Holyoke Gas and Electric via ...
announced a $16 million expansion to its computing campus, planning to build a
quantum computing
A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...
complex.
QuEra Computing was announced as a partner in the project.
Technology
QuEra uses neutral atoms based on
Rubidium
Rubidium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Rb and atomic number 37. It is a very soft, whitish-grey solid in the alkali metal group, similar to potassium and caesium. Rubidium is the first alkali metal in the group to have ...
which are controlled and trapped using lasers as its
qubit
In quantum computing, a qubit () or quantum bit is a basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classic binary bit physically realized with a two-state device. A qubit is a two-state (or two-level) quantum-mechanical syste ...
s.
On November 1, 2022, QuEra released its 256-qubit machine ''Aquila'', to the general public through the
Amazon cloud service Braket.
QuEra currently supports an analog computing mode that relies on the Rydberg blockade phenomena and the position of atoms to achieve
superposition
In mathematics, a linear combination or superposition is an expression constructed from a set of terms by multiplying each term by a constant and adding the results (e.g. a linear combination of ''x'' and ''y'' would be any expression of the form ...
and
entanglement. The analog mode could allow problems such as the Maximum Weight
Independent set (graph theory)
In graph theory, an independent set, stable set, coclique or anticlique is a set of vertices in a graph, no two of which are adjacent. That is, it is a set S of vertices such that for every two vertices in S, there is no edge connecting the t ...
(MWIS) to be expressed and solved with research from the company to map other problems onto MWIS as well
QuEra plans to offer a hybrid analog-digital quantum computer soon followed by a fully
digital gate-based system.
See also
*
Quantum computing
A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...
*
Cloud-based quantum computing
Cloud computing, Cloud-based quantum computing refers to the remote access of quantum computing resources—such as quantum emulators, simulators, or processor (computing), processors—via the internet. Cloud access enables users to develop, test, ...
References
External links
* {{Official website, https://www.quera.com/
Companies based in Boston
American companies established in 2018