Expected for months, Quantinuum, a merger between UK-based Cambridge Quantum and US-based Honeywell Quantum Solutions, officially launched today.
The Quantum Insider announced the merger of the two companies in June. Separately, the two companies were leaders in quantum hardware and software. Honeywell Quantum Solutions (HQS) is a pioneer in ion-trap quantum computer development and Cambridge Quantum has been in the forefront of the creation of quantum software and the commercialization of quantum technology.
The new company will be headed by Ilyas Khan, CEO, and Tony Uttley, president and COO. Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk will be Quantinuum’s chairman.
Perhaps now the world’s largest quantum computing company and the world’s only quantum firm with a full-stack software and hardware pairing, Quantinuum offers a juggernaut of quantum hardware and software solutions. The company will still hold to its is hardware agnostic approach and allow access to multiple quantum systems via the cloud. Plans are to continue serving as an IBM Quantum Hub and operating Honeywell’s Quantinuum System Model H1.
Quantinuum’s H1 has set numerous performance records. The system has consistently claimed records for quantum volume, for example. In March, The device passed the quantum volume 512 benchmark, outputting heavy outcomes 73.32% of the time, above the 2/3 threshold with 99.54% confidence.
On the software side, the new company will touch nearly every solution and use case theorized as ideal for quantum computers. Those solutions include TKET, a high-performance hardware-agnostic quantum software development kit, which is completely open-source. Quantum Natural Language Processing is another area where the new company will be an industry leader. In October, Quantum Natural Language Processing (QNLP) was released on, again, a fully open-sourced basis.
“One of the great advantages of quantum computing — one of its great promises — is that you can do things differently,” Khan said in an earlier interview. “With lambeq we have proven that AI need not be a black box: it can be accountable. It can be interpretable.”
The company will also have a leadership position in cybersecurity, one of quantum’s big challenges-opportunities, with its product IronBridge.
In an earlier interview when the merger plans were announced, Quantinuum’s leadership reflected on the importance of the new company.
“I’m excited that we can become an exemplar in the quantum industry as we also become the center of gravity for the ecosystem,” said Khan. “And I think that if, indeed, quantum computing and quantum technologies is the next Industrial Revolution, which is what many of us believe, then I think that I’d like us to be the exemplar of how to do this correctly.”
Uttley called the move an “inflection point” for quantum.
“This has the potential to become that inflection point in a new technology; the moment when we can harness what might be possible,” said Uttley. “The benefits of quantum to humankind really are that important and we want to have this new company be an accelerator to show how quantum computing can create value. That’s what makes me super excited, makes me smile every time I wake up in the morning and say, ‘Hey, we’re really gonna do this.’”
Based on reports, the company’s next step will to become a publicly traded firm.
Honeywell currently holds a 54% stake in Quantinuum.
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