NEC Partners With Austrian Startup ParityQC To Build “Highly-scalable & Practical” Quantum Computers

Perfect Alignment

NEC Corporation, a Japanese leader in the integration of IT and network technologies, has begun a partnership with ParityQC to develop innovation in the field of quantum annealing, a method of quantum computing.

ParityQC is a quantum architecture startup based in Austria which develops blueprints for quantum computers that can solve optimization problems on the company’s proprietary operating system, ParityOS. It was founded by Wolfgang Lechner and Magdalena Hauser in early 2020.

On the collaboration, the pair said: “One of the great advantages of simultaneously developing hardware and software is the perfect alignment of both disciplines. Exploring this approach together with NEC’s newly developed hardware platform holds great promise.”

Through the continuous pursuit of research and development that began over 20 years ago, NEC is aiming to establish practical applications for quantum annealing machines […].

— NEC Corporation

Partly supported by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), NEC is employing ParityQC’s architecture onto its own superconducting parametron quantum devices, which NEC hopes will improve its chances of developing highly-scalable, practical quantum annealers by the year 2023. If successful, these machines will be adept at solving complex and large-scale combinatorial optimization problems in such sectors as financial portfolio optimization and manufacturing logistics and planning.

Since The 1990s

“I’m thrilled about this partnership in quantum computing research with ParityQC. I firmly believe that using the ParityQC architecture will enable us to realize a quantum annealing machine that delivers the full potential of our superconducting parametron qubits,” said Masayuki Shirane, Senior Manager NEC Corporation’s System Platform Research Laboratories.

Building on quantum tech R&D that has been going on since the 1990s, NEC has managed to build the world’s first solid-state quantum bits while making use of its “supercomputer technology represented by SX-Aurora TSUBASA to enhance the ability to handle larger-scale combinatorial optimization problems”.

It’s becoming a trend of late to witness large corporations getting involved with smaller QC and hard tech startups to leverage their position on the ever-growing quantum tech sector, either for developmental partnerships or for investment opportunities: Fujitsu and Entanglement, Inc; BASF and Zapata Computing; BT and Nu Quantum; Merck and Seeqc; and SK Telecom and ID Quantique are just some of the collaborations that have been realized of late.

With ParityQC, NEC obviously sees the future as quantum. On both their journeys, TQD is sure to keep you posted.

If you found this article to be informative, you can explore more current quantum news here, exclusives, interviews, and podcasts.