Dutch quantum technology company Orange Quantum Systems [OrangeQS] has announced a stronger focus on industry-level testing, that reflects the way the sector is maturing.

OrangeQS has accelerated its planned move into building a system focused on supporting the industrial development and production of quantum chips.

The move from ‘lab to fab’, as quantum chip production becomes industrialized, is a key step towards developing quantum computers to the level that they outperform current supercomputers.

The shift comes at a time when companies such as IBM have begun to talk about the utility of today’s quantum computers, even before they’ve reached the scale and power they need for the paradigm shift that it is envisioned quantum computers will bring. The OrangeQS Industry System will lay the groundwork for quantum chips to be used in industrial settings by accelerating chip design cycles with high-throughput testing.

What was once a largely academic community around the development of quantum computers is becoming more industrial, attracting professionals from the semiconductor industry, along with that industry’s best practices. These include measuring across a large number of devices to collect statistics on device quality and find correlations, and focusing on refining designs and manufacturing processes, to allow scalable and replicable production.

The quantum chip industry–a new branch of the existing computer chip industry–ultimately has the potential to enhance scientific exploration in many fields, once it is able to produce quantum chips with many high-quality qubits, that can be used in quantum computers. These potentially include drug discovery and design, enzymes and catalysts for food and energy production, simulation of new battery technologies and fusion reactor dynamics, materials discovery, financial risk management, AI training, and vehicle routing.

The new OrangeQS Industry System is being built to support this accelerated roadmap. It will be the first time that it has been possible to test chips in a fully automated, turn-key way at scale. The product will accelerate the development of new quantum chipst, via more cost-effective methods than traditional approaches.

At present, leading vendors of quantum computers dedicate roughly 20 to 50 percent of their R&D team to testing quantum devices or building and maintaining test equipment. The OrangeQS Industry System will allow quantum engineers to tackle other key development work, speeding the arrival of future quantum systems.

First customer secured

Signifying the market demand for this new technology, a launch customer has already procured the OrangeQS Industry System.

Our launch customer is a leader in the quantum industry, building full-stack quantum computers and producing and developing their quantum chips in-house,” explains Garrelt Alberts, Managing Director at OrangeQS.

“Traditionally, chips have been tested on full quantum computers. However, at a certain scale the complexity, effort and cost of doing this in the traditional way becomes prohibitively expensive and slow”.

“Our customer is the first to pioneer a new paradigm, where quantum chip development is separated from the deployment of quantum computers. This allows them to test much faster, at much lower cost, and refocus a large part of their R&D team into other bottlenecks on their tech roadmap, effectively accelerating the development of their quality control and de-risking their tech roadmap.”

The OrangeQS Industry System is scheduled to ship to its first customers in Q4 of 2024.