QCI’s founding team from Yale has pioneered a unique approach to quantum computing that solves the core challenges of error correction and scalability
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Quantum Circuits Inc (QCI) has raised $18M in Series A funding, co-led by Canaan and Sequoia, to build and sell the first practical and useful quantum computers. Tribeca Venture Partners, Osage University Partners, and previous investor Fitz Gate Ventures also participated in the financing. Brendan Dickinson of Canaan and Bill Coughran of Sequoia are joining the company’s board.
QCI’s founding team of Michel Devoret, Luigi Frunzio and Robert Schoelkopf of Yale University are world-renowned experts in ground-breaking and proprietary quantum technology. The Yale team has pioneered the field of quantum computing with superconducting circuits, introducing the transmon qubit and techniques for distributing quantum information on wires, and performing the first quantum algorithms and quantum error correction in integrated circuits. QCI is developing its computers based on a proprietary approach for error-correcting quantum bits that is hardware-efficient and requires significantly less redundancy.
“No team has done more to pioneer the superconducting approach to qubits than the QCI founders and their collaborators at Yale, who are responsible for the key breakthroughs bringing solid-state quantum computing to feasibility, over the past decade,” said Isaac Chuang, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Professor Physics at MIT and a member of QCI’s advisory board. “With the strong multi-disciplinary team being assembled by QCI, these leaders are uniquely positioned to deliver a full-stack solution for useful quantum computing.”
The QCI team’s core focus is to build a modular quantum computer that can be reconfigured and reprogrammed in many different ways, with initial applications that will address drug design for biotech, improved processes for industrial chemicals, fintech, machine learning, and energy. Quantum computing allows for computation speeds for some of these problems that are orders of magnitudes faster than today’s supercomputers.
QCI’s unique approach unifies scientific innovation with practical implementation, with the technology developed in Yale’s labs giving QCI a leading position to pursue commercial development of quantum computing. The Yale scientists are continuing the research that generates new breakthroughs, and QCI will look to incorporate those scientific advances into its hardware and software development.
“Quantum computing is a whole new kind of high-performance computation – and with it we’ll see a new wave of innovation just as we did with the first computer,” said Brendan Dickinson, Partner at Canaan. “QCI is taking a hands-on and commercially scalable path to building the first useful quantum computers that will tackle problems that classical computers could never solve.”
“Rob and team’s unique approach to quantum computing is practical, scalable, and incredibly promising,” said Bill Coughran of Sequoia. “QCI is ushering in a new era of computing much faster than we anticipated.”
QCI’s goal is to build multiple generations of general purpose, universal quantum computers that can be reconfigured and reprogrammed in many different ways, expanding their applications. With this new capital, QCI will combine deep experience in quantum physics with the electrical, mechanical, and systems engineers needed for the scaling of quantum computers, as well as the software designers and programmers focused on algorithms and applications to real world problems.
“Quantum Circuits is a case study on the advantages of Yale’s long-term approach to supporting the work of our research faculty,” said Jon Soderstrom, Managing Director of Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research. “We’ve worked closely with QCI’s scientific founders to position their research for commercial development outside the University, and are thrilled that this company joined the growing startup environment right here in New Haven.”
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