Cambridge Quantum Computing

Cambridge Quantum Computing

Type	Privately Held Company
Industry	Quantum Computing
Founded	2014 (2014)
Headquarters	Cambridge , England
Key people	Ilyas Khan (CEO) Niels Nielsen (Chairman) Bob Coecke (Chief scientist)
Products	IronBridge Eumen t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩
Number of employees	130 (2021)
Subsidiaries	Cambridge Quantum Computing, LLC
Website	cambridgequantum.com

Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) is an independent quantum computing company, based in Cambridge, England. Founded in 2014, CQC builds tools for the commercialization of quantum technologies with a focus on quantum software and quantum cybersecurity.^[1][2] CQC has developed an architecture agnostic quantum software development platform, t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩, around which the company has built enterprise applications for quantum cryptography, quantum chemistry, quantum machine learning and Quantum artificial intelligence.^[3][4]

History[]

CQC was established in 2014, and conceived through the University of Cambridge's “Accelerate Cambridge” program.^[5] Béla Bollobás, Imre Leader, Fernando Brandão and Simone Severini were its first scientific advisors.

In September of 2020, CQC announced the launch of the first cloud-based Quantum Random Number Generation Service with integrated verification for the user. The application generates true maximal randomness on an IBM Quantum Computer.^[6]

In December of 2020, CQC completed a $45 million financing from investors including Honeywell Ventures, IBM Ventures, JSR Corporation, Serendipity Capital, Alvarium Investments, and Talipot Holdings. This is the largest private investment ever announced for a quantum software company.^[7]

In January of 2021, CQC appointed Prof Bob Coecke as its Chief Scientist, and opened an Oxford campus.^[8]

Sifted, backed by The Financial Times, placed CQC on its list of European Startups to Watch in 2021.^[9]

In June of 2021, CQC announced its combination with Honeywell Quantum Solutions.^[10] The combined group announced their formal merger and launch as a new organization named "Quantinuum" in November 2021.^[11][12]

Technology[]

CQC has divisions dedicated to four core domains: quantum compiler (t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩), quantum cybersecurity, quantum chemistry (EUMEN), quantum machine learning, .

Quantum software development platform – t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩[]

t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩ is an architecture agnostic quantum software development platform that enables quantum software developers to optimize large circuits for general purpose quantum algorithms. t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩'s routing and scheduling protocol translates machine independent algorithms into executable circuits by optimizing for physical qubit layout while reducing the number of required operations. t${\displaystyle {\mid }}$ket⟩’s Python module, pytket, allows any Python user with access to a quantum computer to deploy the tket SDK in any context, including commercially.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Quantum cybersecurity[]

CQC has launched the first cloud-based quantum random number generation (QRNG) service with integrated verification for the user. The application developed by CQC generates true maximal randomness (or entropy) implemented on an IBM quantum computer that can be verified and thus certified as truly quantum – and therefore truly and maximally random – for the first time. This cannot be done on a classical computer.^{[17][18][19][20]}

Quantum chemistry – EUMEN[]

CQC has developed EUMEN, an enterprise-grade quantum chemistry platform to perform computational chemistry calculations on current quantum hardware machines. EUMEN enables the design of pharmaceuticals, speciality chemicals, performance materials and agrochemicals.^{[21][22][23][24]}

Quantum nachine learning[]

CQC has efforts in QML with a focus on quantum circuit learning on near-term noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers. The company has commercial work in deploying deep learning for time-series modeling and decision-making and specializes in quantum enhanced solutions for machine learning and optimization problems.^[25][26][27]

Quantum NLP[]

In 2020, CQC performed quantum natural language processing (NLP) on IBM hardware. This was the first time NLP has been performed on quantum hardware.

Locations[]

CQC is headquartered in Cambridge, but has offices in London (Victoria and St. James's), Oxford, Cambridge, Chessington, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Tokyo.^[28]

External links[]

• Official website

References[]