- Digital quantum computing company Seeqc has announced it raised over $11 million in funding. These are the details.
Digital quantum computing company Seeqc has announced it raised $5 million from M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA to develop commercially viable quantum computing systems for problem-specific applications. This round of funding follows a $6.8 million seed round from investors BlueYard Capital, Cambium, NewLab and the Partnership Fund for New York City.
What does Seeqc do? Seeqc is developing a new approach to making quantum computing useful, via fully Digital Quantum Computing. This solution combines classical and quantum computing to form an all-digital architecture through a system-on-a-chip design that utilizes 10-40 GHz superconductive classical co-processing to address the efficiency, stability, and cost issues endemic to quantum computing systems. Recently, Seeqc spun out of HYPRES, Inc. — a leading developer of superconductor electronics — to pursue a vision of making quantum computing useful, commercially and at scale.
Through the spin-out, Seeqc acquired significant infrastructure and intellectual property from HYPRES. And HYPRES had garnered over $100 million from public and private investments to develop a multi-layer commercial superconductor chip foundry and intellectual property. This investment was in support of creating commercial superconductive computing solutions, much of which is now part of Seeqc.
These assets give Seeqc the advantage of having sophisticated tools, facilities, and IP for the design, testing, and manufacturing of quantum-ready superconductor chips and wafers.
Merck KGaA will be a strategic partner for Seeqc supporting its research and development towards useful application-specific quantum computers both as semiconductor materials solutions provider as well as an end-user for high-performance quantum computing.
The team of executives and scientists at Seeqc has deep expertise and experience in commercial superconductive computing solutions and quantum computing. The company’s executive leadership team consists of co-CEO, chair, and co-founder John Levy; co-CEO, CTO, and co-founder Oleg Mukhanov, PhD; and chief product officer and co-founder Matthew Hutchings.
Seeqc is entering the quantum computing market as the world leader in superconductive electronics and is one of the only companies to ever design, manufacture, and deliver multi-layer superconductive digital chips operating at tens of GHz into complex cryogenic systems.
As major advancements have been made recently with early generation quantum computing systems, such systems and architectures are considered unstable and unscalable. And the industry continues to struggle with cost, readout and control challenges, excessive input/output connection count, and the complexities of managing microwave pulses used to control and readout qubits.
Seeqc is essentially developing the first fully digital quantum computing platform for global businesses. And Seeqc combines classical and quantum technologies to address the efficiency, stability and cost issues endemic to quantum computing systems.
The company applies classical and quantum technology through digital readout and control technology and a unique chip-scale architecture. And Seeqc’s quantum system provides the energy- and cost-efficiency, speed and digital control required to make quantum computing useful and bring the first commercially-scalable and problem-specific quantum computing applications to market.
Key Quotes:
“The ‘brute force’ or labware approach to quantum computing contemplates building machines with thousands or even millions of qubits requiring multiple analog cables and, in some cases, complex CMOS readout/control for each qubit, but that doesn’t scale effectively as the industry strives to deliver business-applicable solutions. With Seeqc’s hybrid approach, we utilize the power of quantum computers in a digital system-on-a-chip environment, offering greater control, cost reduction and with a massive reduction in energy, introducing a more viable path to commercial scalability.”
“We believe that the best way to make quantum computing commercially viable is to ensure that early engagement with customers is ultra-focused and problem-specific, with the goal to solve previously insurmountable challenges with a targeted application specific hardware and software solution. A close partnership with customers, academic experts and application developers to work through the early use cases of quantum computing is critical to extracting its novel and potentially world-changing value.”
-Seeqc co-chief executive officer John Levy
“We’re excited to be working with a world leading team and fab on one of the most pressing issues in modern quantum computing. We recognize that scaling the current generations of superconducting quantum computers beyond the noisy intermediate scale quantum era will require fundamental changes in qubit control and wiring. Building on deep expertise in single flux quantum technologies, Seeqc has a clear, and importantly cost-efficient, pathway towards addressing existing challenges and disrupting analog, microwave-controlled architectures.”
-Owen Lozman, Vice President at M Ventures
“As a leading science and technology company, it is one of our key missions to stay on top of emerging trends. In quantum computing, we see a huge potential to advance major parts of our existing business. We’re therefore excited to be embarking on a close partnership with Seeqc to develop the next generation of quantum machines. For one, our Semiconductor Solutions business unit will be working with Seeqc to develop and optimize semiconductor materials and processes utilized in the manufacturing of quantum technologies. In parallel, our Quantum Computing Task Force will support Seeqc in developing application-specific quantum co-processors to expedite the advent of industrially viable quantum computers that can be used by our Digital Organization and by our computational researcher across our three main business units.”
-John Langan, Chief Technology Officer, Performance Materials at Merck, KGaA, Darmstadt Germany
