Many organizations are paving the way to a future built on quantum computers, and that future is promising. With quantum computers at hand, humanity will be able to solve enormously complex problems at scale and faster than ever before.
But getting to that future has a significant amount of roadblocks to overcome first before quantum computing becomes widely available. Many companies – of all sizes – are actively developing and building quantum computers and functions.
Companies that build quantum computers
As quantum computers continue to develop and undergo research, companies are building quantum capabilities in both hardware and software. Companies on this list are developing quantum capabilities in a variety of ways, including infrastructure, algorithms, and development environments for testing.
While this list is not exhaustive, here are some of the companies building quantum computers.
Amazon
Amazon is a newer player joining the race to build a quantum computer. In 2021, Amazon announced the opening of the AWS Center for Quantum Computing in Pasadena, California. It has partnered with the California Institute of Technology to foster the next generation of quantum researchers and fuel their efforts to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer.
In addition to these efforts, Amazon offers a quantum computing service called Amazon Braket, which gives developers access to quantum computers and tools from third-party partners. This service enables customers to accelerate their own quantum computing research, build quantum projects and run quantum algorithms.
D-Wave system
D-Wave Systems, a Canada-based company, is the world’s first organization to sell a commercial quantum computer. Its latest, the D-Wave Advantage system, features a processor architecture with more than 5,000 qubits and 15-way qubit connectivity.
D-Wave’s quantum computers use a process called quantum annealing. This process is specifically designed for optimization, so when users map a problem into a search, the processing unit considers all possibilities simultaneously and presents calculations corresponding to the optimal configurations of found qubits. These values are the best possible results, resulting in higher quality results at scale.
D-Wave is currently developing an incremental follow-up to the Advantage system. In addition to hardware, the company offers a cloud-based full stack of systems to enable enterprises, government agencies, national laboratories and academic organizations to build quantum applications.
Google’s Quantum AI lab has developed a programmable superconducting processor. A new iteration is Sycamore, a 54-qubit processor consisting of high-quality quantum logic gates.
In 2019, Google claimed that Sycamore had achieved quantum supremacy. Quantum supremacy is the point where a quantum device can solve a problem exponentially faster than a classical processor. In this case, Sycamore took about 200 seconds to try an instance of a quantum circuit 1 million times—something that would have taken a classical supercomputer almost 10,000 years to do.
Since then, Sycamore has been used to run chemical simulations, wormhole simulations and more. Google has also developed a software stack with open source tools and a quantum computing service to develop new quantum algorithms. Its research team continues to drive innovation in quantum computing, from hardware control systems and quantum control to physics modeling and quantum error correction.
IBM
In November 2022, IBM held the Quantum Summit, where it unveiled a development roadmap outlining its plans and timeline for the advancement of quantum computing through 2025. Its primary goal is to move beyond using single processors, and by 2025 it plans to combine multichip processors into what it has called the Kookaburra processor. Compared to IBM’s latest processor, the Osprey, which has 433 qubits, IBM plans the multichip Kookaburra processor to have 4,158 qubits.
These plans are ambitious, but IBM has a strong history in quantum development. In 2019, it launched a commercial quantum computer, the IBM Quantum System One. It is currently developing IBM Quantum System Two to better serve Osprey and future quantum processors.
In addition to hardware, IBM operates a suite of cloud-based quantum systems that provide researchers, organizations, and developers with access to various services and resources, including IBM Quantum Composer, IBM Quantum Lab, and Qiskit, an open source SDK for quantum computing. This platform has both public and premium tiers for users to develop, test and run quantum projects.
IonQ
IonQ’s quantum computers use trapped-ion technology. Most quantum hardware uses synthetic quantum systems for their qubits, but IonQ uses naturally occurring individual atomic ions at the core of its processing units. These ions are trapped in a 3D space, and IonQ uses lasers to prepare and perform the calculations.
IonQ has three quantum systems: IonQ Harmony, an 11-qubit system launched in 2020; IonQ Aria, a 25-qubit system launched in 2022; and IonQ Forte, a 32-qubit system currently in development and in beta testing with researchers. All are based on IonQ’s trapped-ion technology architecture, and the Harmony and Aria are available via the IonQ Quantum Cloud or Amazon Braket.
Microsoft
Microsoft is currently developing its own scalable, full-stack quantum machine with a unique approach focused on topological qubits. The research team at Microsoft has invented a control chip, called Gooseberry, and a cryo-computing core that is key to this approach.
In short, the chip and core work together to maintain a stable cold environment that allows the quantum stack to send and receive information to and from each qubit. Accomplishing this task is no easy feat; But if Microsoft can pull it off, it will result in a highly scalable quantum computer that can support even larger, more complex applications.
Although development is still ongoing for this hardware, Microsoft also offers a portfolio of quantum computers from other hardware vendors as part of its Azure Quantum platform. This service provides an open development environment for researchers, companies and developers that enables the flexibility to tune algorithms and explore today’s quantum systems.
QCI
Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) is a full-stack quantum company that claims to be committed to democratizing access to quantum value. Instead of building quantum computing services for the biggest companies, QCI’s offerings are more affordable and can be used by non-quantum experts.
From a hardware perspective, QCI has built the Entropy Quantum Computer (EQC), which aims to create useful qubits to perform calculations today rather than 10 years in the future. Organizations can use an EQC through a two-tier subscription service: Dirac-1, a qubit-based system, and Dirac-2, a qudit-based system.
QCI also offers Qatalyst, a cloud-based service that enables end users to solve problems on quantum systems without requiring complex programming skills. In line with this is its QUBT University, which helps users learn about quantum algorithms and how to run calculations. QCI is currently developing new quantum computing chip capabilities.
How many
In 2021, Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum announced a merger, forming Quantinuum. The merger brought together Cambridge Quantum, a developer of quantum software, and Honeywell Quantum Solutions, which builds quantum hardware based on trapped-ion technologies.
Honeywell’s quantum computer, System Model H1, has achieved the highest quantum volume measurement – 32,768 – in the history of quantum computing. This hardware pairs with the Cambridge Quantum software suite, which applies quantum computing to solve complex problems in industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to specialty chemicals and beyond.
Throwing away computers
Rigetti Computing is an integrated systems company that builds quantum computers and superconducting quantum processors. Its latest processor, the Aspen-M-3, has 80 qubits and is based on multichip technology. Its quantum processors are gate-model universal machines.
Rigetti is currently developing a new 84-qubit processor called Ankaa, and the plan is to join four of these processors together to form a 336-qubit machine called Lyra. Its roadmap includes building an even larger machine capable of supporting 1,000 qubits in 2025 and one with 4,000 qubits in 2027.
Users can access Rigetti’s quantum computing system through its Quantum Cloud Services platform or Amazon Braket. The cloud platform enables coders to write quantum algorithms for simulations of their quantum chips.
The cage
Xanadu Quantum Technologies is a Canada-based company that takes a photonic approach to building quantum computers.
Xanadus Borealis, one of the largest photonic quantum computers ever built, uses photonics and quantum light sources that emit pulses of squeezed light. Borealis has more than 216 squeezed-state qubits and is particularly efficient at solving Gaussian boson sampling problems – something that would take classical computers thousands of years to do.
Xanadu also leads the development of PennyLane, an open source software library for quantum computing and application development. Organizations can access Borealis through Xanadu Cloud or Amazon Bracket.
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