Photonic - steadfastly advancing the quantum industry with a unified quantum computing and networking platform
As a seasoned entrepreneur, engineer, and angel investor, Dr Paul Terry specialises in emerging technologies advising venture capitals and governments on economic, technical, health and national defence strategies. Ahead of being silver sponsors at the upcoming Quantum.Tech conference in Washington D.C., Paul discussed the role Photonic play within the quantum ecosystem and their partnership with Microsoft.
To start with, please give us a little introduction on your current role and what you do.
I am the CEO at Photonic, Inc. We are a company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, with 140 team members across Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe. We are building large-scale, fault-tolerant, distributed quantum computers. Our architecture is unique; it combines the manufacturability, scalability, and controllability of spin qubits in silicon with a native telecom interface for each qubit, providing the on-chip and off-chip connectivity needed for high efficiency QLDPC error correction. This approach enables quantum systems to scale both vertically and horizontally, providing the foundational building blocks for distributed, fault-tolerant quantum computing.
What are your views on the quantum industry as a whole right now and the discussion around NISQ and fault tolerance?
It’s helpful to frame the evolution of the quantum industry in phases as it provides a narrative that not only aligns with the approach of industry analysts and strategic partners, but significantly aids enterprises in anchoring their quantum adoption strategy on technologies and partners with a path where significant commercial value will emerge.
Phase 1 marks the NISQ era, characterized by small scale qubits and noisy, unreliable operations, which makes them largely unusable for real world use cases. It has yet to be shown that these technologies have an answer to the scalability and fault tolerance challenges in quantum. While this era has been instrumental in exploring the potential of quantum computing, it hasn't yielded any significant commercially relevant use cases.
Phase 2 marks the era of small-scale, monolithic, fault-tolerant systems, the current phase we find the industry in. This phase primarily involves neutral atoms, with notable innovations observed in the past 6 months. Vertical scaling and on-chip parallelism are advancing yet hindered by sluggish gate speed and the lack of modular interconnects remains a barrier to progressing to true scalability. It will be intriguing to watch if any early small-scale, commercially viable applications emerge during this phase.
Phase 3 will herald the advent of large-scale, distributed, fault-tolerant systems, often referred to as quantum supercomputing. This phase is characterized by the seamless integration of quantum computing with quantum networking; it is also characterized by modular interconnects that enable virtually unlimited horizontal scalability, as well as high entanglement distribution bandwidth between modules, crucial for realizing large-scale quantum algorithms. At this phase, the industry will see commercially-relevant algorithms with exponential speedups needed for tackling complex computational challenges and market demand for high-value use cases.
Where does your organization sit in the quantum eco-system?
With our partners, Photonic is steadfastly advancing toward Phase 3 with a strategy that integrates quantum computing and networking into a unified platform. Our architecture is designed to enable cloud-style horizontal scalability while optimizing for entanglement distribution, harnessing the potential of silicon colour centres, known as T centres. The high connectivity and native optical interface of our qubit platform enables low overhead quantum error correction and high-performance nonlocal gates needed for scalable distributed quantum computing. Our approach has the potential to significantly speed up the realization of modular, scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers and network components like multi-use quantum hubs and repeaters.
How many qubits do you see the industry reaching in the next year to 18 months? Will they make a difference?
We should approach quantum computing from a systems perspective rather than solely a components perspective, which is currently the prevailing approach, although we are seeing dramatic shifts here. Existing quantum architectures face formidable scale limitations: restricted qubit numbers per system, limited horizontal scalability, constrained networking capabilities, and high error correction ratios. There's a pressing need for a substantial shift in the discourse to address the requirements for achieving the commercially relevant use cases of Phase 3.
Do you think 2024 will see an uplift in quantum investment?
The predicted "quantum winter" did not materialize, and I foresee accelerated funding flowing to both quantum vendors and customer quantum initiatives. Strategic investors and enterprises are setting their sights on the ultimate goal and will prioritize investment in companies with a clear path to reach Phase 3.
How do you think quantum will impact on cyber-security? Do enterprises need to be approaching this challenge now, or is that hype?
Governments and forward-thinking enterprises are already thinking about the impact of quantum on security. Cryptographically relevant quantum computers will be able to break today’s public key encryption algorithms, such as widely used RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and or Elliptic Curve cryptography.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) offers theoretically provable security against these attacks. This is particularly important considering “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks. Once encryption is compromised, there is no undo button.
QKD does require substantial investment in infrastructure, integration, standardization, and validation, but it is an essential part of a layered approach to the security of critical networks, such as telecom backbones, energy grid control, military, government, healthcare, and financial networks.
These strategies should not be mutually exclusive. QKD complements—not replaces—post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms compatible with existing network and compute infrastructure. While PQC offers convenience and ease of integration with existing infrastructure, it is relatively new, with increasingly new methods for defeating PQC algorithms being discovered frequently. It is critical for governments and for enterprises to be adopting layered approaches to security, as both the PQC and QKD landscapes continue to change dramatically.
Tell us more about your partnership with Microsoft.
In November 2023, Photonic and Microsoft announced a strategic co-innovation collaboration. We are pairing Microsoft’s global infrastructure, platforms, and scale of the Azure cloud with our quantum computing and networking technology. Together, we’re working on technologies that enable reliable quantum communications over long distances, as well as accelerating scientific research and development across a wide variety of fields.
Meet Photonic INC at Quantum.Tech USA:
If you would like to meet the Photonic INC team in Washington D.C. at the 5th edition of Quantum.Tech USA, make sure secure your ticket here today and grab one of the last few remaining tickets for the main conference on April 25-26.