UPDATED 22:27 EDT / NOVEMBER 21 2018

EMERGING TECH

Israeli startup grabs $5.5M in seed funding to build a full ‘quantum stack’

Israeli startup Quantum Machines Co. has joined the race to build the infrastructure necessary to support quantum computing.

The company, which is based in Tel Aviv, said today it has raised $5.5 million in a seed funding round led by Battery Ventures and TLV Partners.

Quantum Machines was founded this year by  Chief Executive Officer Itamar Sivan and some research colleagues from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Its website is rather bare at the moment, but it says it’s trying to build the “connective tissue” to link traditional digital computing with the quantum realm.

“We develop the most advanced control and operation systems for quantum computers and aim to fulfill the potential in quantum computing,” the company says in the mission statement posted on its LinkedIn page.

Experts say quantum computers have massive potential because they’ll be exponentially more powerful than traditional computers once they become viable. Whereas classic computers use binary digits or “bits,” which can be represented as 1 or 0, quantum computers use “qubits” that can be “superpositioned,” allowing them to be represented as 1s, 0s or both states at the same time.

In addition, qubits can use a method called superdense coding that allows them to hold two bits simultaneously. So two superpositioned bits held in one qubit means they can process four times the data of ordinary computers.

Quantum computers also have a characteristic called “entanglement,” in which the qubits have the ability to correlate with each other so that each is aware of the state of all the others. That means quantum computers grow in power exponentially as qubits are added. So, in theory, a 200-qubit system is 2,200 times as powerful as a 100-qubit system. By comparison, the power of classic digital computers grow linearly. In short, quantum computers are far more powerful than their classic cousins, able to perform intense calculations many, many times faster.

Quantum Machines’ work involves building both software and hardware, and is said to combine classical computer engineering techniques with new quantum computing science and technology.

Quantum Machines is focused on the “operational and control layers” of quantum architecture, according to its website. That’s something quite different from what other quantum researchers such as IBM Corp. are doing. Their work is mostly focused on scaling up the number of quantum bits used in microprocessors.

The company is hoping to build a “complete quantum stack” in order to link traditional computers with their quantum cousins. The approach accounts for the common assumption that the two technologies will need to work together for many applications, such as transmitting an algorithm through a traditional software layer to a quantum processor.

“The power of quantum computers stems from their complexity and richness, though it is also this complexity which makes them incredibly difficult to control and operate, which is the problem our company is attempting to solve,” Sivan said in a statement.

Image: TheDigitalArtist/Pixabay

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