Germany's 208.5 million euros to build ion-trap quantum computers, investment outpaces superconducting and photonic systems

At the end of October, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) announced [1] that a contract has been signed for the development of ion trap technology. As part of the DLR's quantum computing program, quantum computing prototypes will be created within four years; the total amount of the contract is €208.5 million - the largest single investment made by the EU government to research this technology. This investment exceeds the superconductivity (€76.3 million over five years) and photon (€50 million over five years) systems.

01Five major projects, €208.5 million investment

Quantum processors using ion trap technology

"As part of its quantum computing initiative, the German Aerospace Center is awarding contracts for five projects aimed at creating quantum bits based on ion traps. This technology is considered to be very promising and will be explored through targeted research. This brings us one step closer to programmable, fault-tolerant quantum computers." Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, chairman of DLR's executive committee, said, "The synergies created through the close collaboration between business and science strengthen the quantum computing ecosystem and thus also provide new opportunities for start-ups."

The contracts total €208.5 million and the progressive development of the system will take place in several phases. Of this amount, Universal Quantum received €67 million and eleQtron received €50 million.

"By the end of the project, we will have a quantum computer based on ion trap technology, with at least 50 quantum bits. At the same time, we are building modular systems that can scale to thousands of quantum bits." Robert Axmann, head of the DLR quantum computing program, said, "The academic and economic environment of our innovation center makes it an ideal place for continued development."

For the initial project, a consortium consisting of NXP Semiconductors Germany (Hamburg), eleQtron and Parity Quantum Computing Germany (Munich) will deliver a 10-quantum-bit demonstration model, scheduled to be operational by the end of 2023. Users will be able to use this quantum computer to gain experience with ion trap systems and to advance their development.

Two projects involve building prototype quantum computers with at least 50 fully functional quantum bits on a single chip. The German company of the British quantum computing company Universal Quantum (Düsseldorf) and a consortium of Qudora Technologies (Braunschweig) and NXP Semiconductors Germany (Hamburg) are each developing their own systems. The chip is scalable, which means that the number of quantum bits and the computing power can be increased.

In two other projects, modular, scalable quantum computers are being developed on the basis of ion traps. This involves networking several chips to form a common quantum computer architecture. The special feature is that each module is its own small quantum processor with 10 quantum bits each. This architecture will later evolve to consist of many chips with thousands of quantum bits. universal Quantum and NXP Semiconductors Germany/eleQtron/Parity Quantum Computing are developing these modular quantum computing prototypes on behalf of the German Aerospace Center.

In the future, the companies and their employees will be able to make use of the offices, laboratories and a clean room at the DLR Innovation Center in Hamburg. Here and at the DLR Innovation Center in Ulm, the companies will benefit from close contact with DLR institutes and working groups to tackle the challenges of quantum computing together.

02Creating an ion trap quantum computer

Vacuum chamber for ion storage

Ion trapping technology is one of the most established methods for building quantum computers. Charged atoms cannot escape from an ion trap because they are confined by an electromagnetic field. Lasers, radio waves or microwaves can then be targeted to change the state of charged atoms (ions) so that they become quantum bits, the building blocks of a quantum computer. Specifically, ion trap quantum computers have several advantages.

1) Longer coherence time. in January 2021, Qi Huan Jin's research group at Tsinghua University's Institute of Cross-Information set a new coherence time record: for the first time, a single quantum bit coherence time of more than one hour was achieved in an ion trap system.

(2) Single quantum bit gate and double quantum bit gate have high fidelity. Among them, the fidelity of single quantum bit rotation is up to 99.9999%; in double quantum bit entanglement, the hyperfine quantum bit fidelity is up to 99.9%, and only the performance of superconducting quantum bit can be compared with it.

3) More direct state preparation and readout. The initialization and readout fidelity data are better than any other quantum bit technique: the use of laser measurements leads to readout fidelity of over 99.99% detection time in 200 μs and 99.93% in 11 μs [1]. This year Quantinuum's ion trap system uses barium ion quantum bits to increase SPAM fidelity to 99.9904% - the highest of all quantum technologies to date.

4) High repeatability of quantum bits. All ions of a particular species and isotope are essentially the same, so the microwave or laser frequency required to process each ion in the system is the same, and each ion has the same coherence time. This improves the reproducibility of the quantum bits and limits the number of calibration steps needed at the beginning of the calculation compared to other techniques.

"Ion trap systems allow for generalized arithmetic operations. They are not dedicated to solving specific tasks." Karla Loida, project manager of the Quantum Computing Initiative, explains, "Quantum computers based on ion traps have many advantages: the quantum bits are relatively stable and offer superb gating characteristics. This is a prerequisite for building high-quality quantum computers. Integration on microchips and innovative chip designs mean that scalability is now within reach." The technology required to build has now reached maturity. Laser systems can be used to provide the necessary cooling and directed manipulation of quantum bits. Integration on microchips has also proven successful.

The prototype quantum computer developed as part of the project will be used for research and development at DLR and will be accessible via the Web.

Not only that, but the DLR is supporting various technology projects in parallel and applying its own skills and focus areas to relevant research and development work. Over the next four years, as part of the Quantum Computing Initiative, DLR will build prototype quantum computers with different architectures and develop related technologies and applications: DLR is involving companies, startups and other research institutions so that all partners can make significant progress together.

03Attitudes of participating companies

Experts believe that millions of quantum bits will be needed to solve some of the most complex problems that will benefit society. To achieve this, there are a number of challenges: reliable connectivity of the chips (also known as modules), and cooling temperatures and other engineering requirements.Universal Quantum's unique approach solves these two problems and more by allowing the modules to connect like a puzzle to scale to high quantum bit counts while requiring only modest cooling temperatures.

Sebastian Weidt, CEO and co-founder of Universal Quantum, said, "Germany is helping to drive quantum computing to be something useful to society, and building on our recent success with the UK government, another major government is becoming a supporter and customer of our stellar team and technology. This is a tremendous validation of how unique and promising our technology is, and represents a huge step forward in our mission to build quantum computers that will help people solve the biggest challenges facing humanity. We look forward to expanding our technology to new markets, building on our recent successes and working with partners who share our values."

"Our team has worked intensively in developing our technology. With the DLR contract, we reached an important milestone and received further recognition of the quality of our technology," said Professor Winfried Hensinger, Chief Scientist, Co-Founder and Chairman of Universal Quantum: "The key to our technology concept is the inherent scalability of the quantum computers we are building. Our mission is to solve many of the fundamental problems of our time: this is the next step on that path."

Reference links:

[1]https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2022/04/20221027_contract-awarded-as-part-of-the-dlr-quantum-computing-initiative.html

[2]https://medium.com/@universalquantum/universal-quantum-wins-67m-contract-to-build-the-fully-scalable-trapped-ion-quantum-computer-16eba31b869e