On the outskirts of Santa Barbara, California, between the orchards and the ocean, sits an inconspicuous warehouse, its windows tinted brown and its exterior painted a dull gray. The facility has almost no signage, and its name doesn’t appear on Google Maps.

A 1960s nuclear research lab in the North of England will host a new quantum computing facility under plans drawn up by a Silicon Valley technology company.

PsiQuantum is to set up a research hub at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, using the facility’s state of the art cooling systems to develop its technology.

The emerging technology of quantum computing could revolutionize the fight against climate change, transforming the economics of decarbonization and becoming a major factor in limiting global warming to the target temperature of 1.5°C (see sidebar “What is quantum computing?”).

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has announced that it has selected the companies that will receive funding under its Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program.

In 2009, Jeremy O'Brien, a professor at the University of Bristol, published a research paper describing how to repurpose on-chip optical components originally developed by the telecom industry to manipulate single particles of light and perform quantum operations. By 2016, based on the earlier photonic research, O’Brien and three of his academic colleagues, Terry Rudolph, Mark Thompson, and Pete Shadbolt, created PsiQuantum.

The funding will be provided by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) through the Air Force Research (AFRL) Laboratory located in Rome, New York. This lab has been designated as the Quantum Information Science Research Center for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.

Forbes

In this most recent HPCwire/QCwire survey, senior researchers from D-Wave Systems, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and PsiQuantum tackle benchmarking, networking, and hybrid classical-quantum computing approaches.

HPCwire

In an announcement at the 2022 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, PsiQuantum announced it is setting up a new subsidiary called Qlimate devoted to using quantum computing to help solve the many computational problems associated with developing solutions for climate change.

Quantum Computing Report

An interview with Pete Shadbolt, Chief Scientific Officer at PsiQuantum, on the approach PsiQuantum is taking to develop a quantum computer.

Quantum Computing Report

Quantum computers can help us regulate the climate, make new medicines and solve the energy problem. Australian Jeremy O'Brien hopes to create 'the first useful quantum computer' by the end of the decade with his company PsiQuantum.

De Tijd

PsiQuantum is aiming to be the first company to develop a fully-functioning quantum computer, and has raised $450m from backers.

The Telegraph

PsiQuantum CEO Jeremy O’Brien outlines how, by the middle of this decade, PsiQuantum will have completely stood up all the manufacturing lines and processes necessary to begin assembling a final machine: a fault-tolerant, error-corrected quantum computer with hundreds of logical qubits and billions of gates.

2021 APS March Meeting

PsiQuantum is one of a group of leading start-ups in quantum computing. With a more pragmatic approach than its peers, the company hopes to build the world's first 'useful' quantum computer.

Investment Monitor

Quantum computing is now entering the commercial sphere, and given its potential impact on everything from climate change to medical research, no business can afford to ignore it.

Investment Monitor

Jeremy O’Brien, CEO of PsiQuantum, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the exponential advantage quantum computing will bring to problems across science and industry, and talks about how he’s using photonics to build the first productive quantum computer.

Harvard Business Review

PsiQuantum, a little-known quantum computing startup, recently received $150 million in a Series C funding round that closed earlier this year.

Forbes

PsiQuantum’s photon-based model is still years away, but the company says it’ll be more powerful than Google’s or IBM’s.

Bloomberg