Photonic Collaborating With Microsoft to Power Global Quantum Ecosystem

Insider Brief

• Photonic Inc. announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft.
• The agreement positions the two companies to unlock the next stages of development in quantum networking and power the global quantum ecosystem.
• The teams hope to usher in a new era of quantum networking and accelerate innovation across the quantum computing ecosystem.

PRESS RELEASE — Photonic Inc., a company building one of the world’s first scalable, fault-tolerant and unified quantum computing and networking platforms based on photonically linked silicon spin qubits, announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft. The agreement positions the two companies to unlock the next stages of development in quantum networking and power the global quantum ecosystem with future capabilities.

Through the companies’ collaboration, Photonic and Microsoft will provide an integrated roadmap of technologies and products that can enable reliable quantum communications over long distances, as well as access to Photonic’s quantum computing offering via Microsoft Azure Quantum Elements. This could promise to usher in a new era of quantum networking and accelerate innovation across the quantum computing ecosystem.

Microsoft is engineering a fault-tolerant quantum supercomputing ecosystem at scale on Azure to accelerate scientific exploration. Photonic has built one of the world’s largest teams of quantum silicon experts and raised a total of $140 million USD in funding to date. Photonic’s quantum architecture uniquely leverages photonically linked silicon spin qubits, an approach that overcomes the challenges impeding many other quantum platforms. Leveraging a qubit with a photon interface, Photonic’s novel approach communicates using ultralow-loss standard telecom equipment and wavelengths.

“Our strategic collaboration with Microsoft will enable us together to accelerate the pursuit of quantum at scale,” said Dr. Stephanie Simmons, Founder and Chief Quantum Officer of Photonic and Co-chair of Canada’s National Quantum Strategy Advisory Board. “Microsoft is the perfect partner for Photonic, enabling us to tap into global infrastructure, proven platforms, and the tremendous scale of Microsoft Azure.”

“We are thrilled about joining forces with Photonic in improving the world through quantum technologies,” said Jason Zander, Executive Vice President of Strategic Missions and Technologies, Microsoft. “There is an opportunity to ignite new capabilities across the quantum ecosystem extending beyond computing, such as networking and sensing, and unlocking applications and scientific discovery at scale across chemistry, materials science, metrology, communications, and many other fields. The capabilities we aim to deliver together with Photonic can enable this vision and bring about quantum’s impact far more quickly than otherwise possible.”

In related news, Photonic also announced today Photonic Accelerating Quantum Computing Transformational Benefits with New Architecture, and Photonic Raises $100 Million USD for Quantum Technology from BCI, Microsoft, and Other Investors. In addition, a Photonic technical paper, Scalable Fault-Tolerant Quantum Technologies with Silicon Colour Centres, details the company’s novel architecture, and a Microsoft blog post, Microsoft and Photonic join forces on the path to quantum at scale, offers more perspective on that company’s collaboration with Photonic.

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