July 10, 2025 - Diraq is pleased to share that Dr Scott Liles from UNSW Sydney has been awarded a $500,000 Early Career Industry Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (ARC). Through this Fellowship, Dr Liles will collaborate with Diraq to develop a high-sensitivity tool for characterising silicon quantum chips — a critical capability as the industry advances towards scalable quantum systems.

The ARC fellowship recognises Dr. Liles’ research towards Diraq's mission of achieving large-scale quantum processors. This funding will advance Dr. Liles’ project titled: Enhancing the Characterisation of Industry Designed Arrays of Spin Qubits.

“I am incredibly grateful for the support of the Diraq team over the years and look forward to strengthening our collaboration through this research project,” said Dr Liles.

This project is focused on developing a tool to assist Diraq in advancing from prototype devices to large-scale quantum processors by improving the ability to detect and understand material imperfections at the atomic level.

This research addresses an important requirement in scaling to industry designed quantum processors and is a key component in enabling the path towards quantum chips with many millions of qubits. This is the scale required for unlocking fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of solving commercially relevant computational challenges.

Dr Liles’ Industry Fellowship, sponsored by Diraq, builds on a strong track record of ARC recognition for individuals affiliated with the company. This includes a prestigious Laureate Fellowship awarded to Diraq’s CEO and Founder, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, as well as several ARC Industry Fellowships where Diraq has served as the industry sponsor – including the Industry Laureate awarded to Scientia Professor Alex Hamilton, the Industry Mid-Career Fellowship to Dr Kok Wai Chan, and the Industry Early Career Fellowship to Dr Nard Dumoulin Stuyck. These honours underscore the Australian Government’s continued commitment to advancing commercial quantum technology in Australia.

“We look forward to collaborating with Dr Liles and the contribution his research will have on Diraq’s ambitions in delivering a utility scale quantum computer,” said Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq. “The team at Diraq extend our warm congratulations on this prestigious achievement.”