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Copyright 2019, US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc., All rights reserved.

Quantum Computing Platforms

By Jeffrey Cohen, President Chicago Quantum

US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc. November 6, 2019


Quantum Computing PlatformsJeffrey Cohen, November 6, 2019

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https://www.chicagoquantum.com

https://www.chicagoquantum.com


Jeffrey Cohen, President, US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc. +1.312.515.7333 (cell), @chicago_quantum (twitter), [email protected] (email)

“Contact us for more information or to solution & consume your own platform”

Groupings of Quantum Platforms

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Hardware - full stack quantum computer manufacturers

Software - platform providers

Consultancies & ISVs - solution providers and systems integrators

mailto:[email protected]


Jeffrey Cohen, President, US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc. +1.312.515.7333 (cell), @chicago_quantum (twitter), [email protected] (email)

“All data is publicly available”

“Contact us for more information and to create your own quantum use case”

“This list may not be comprehensive as it is based on team experience.”

Notes & Acknowledgements

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Hardware vendors that also sell software are listed only once

mailto:[email protected]


Quantum Computing Hardware Platform Providers

Alibaba Cloud (with CAS)

Alpine Quantum Technologies GmbH

ATOS / Bull

D-Wave Systems

Fujitsu IT Ltd.

Google AI

Honeywell Quantum Solutions

Intel Corporation

IBM Research

IonQ

Rigetti Computing

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation

Xanadu

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Approaches: 1/ annealing, 2/ universal or gate-based, or 3/simulators

Technologies: 1/ superconducting, 2/ ion traps, 3/ photons, 4/ neutral atoms, or 5/ spin qubits

Access methods: 1/ on-premise hardware, or 2/ public cloud access

Simulators currently offer comparable performance

Competition between F100 public and small VC/private firms

No commercial ‘production’ workloads

* Most providers build or systems integrate a full hardware and software stack (think IBM PCs before MS/DOS) * No supplier offers quantum memory, storage, I/O, networking or DBMS; nor fault tolerant or error corrected systems.


Quantum Computing Software Platform Providers

1QBit

Aliro

ETH Zurich (Project Q)

Microsoft Quantum

Q-CRTL

Quantum Benchmark Inc.

QC Ware (QCaaS)

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Most offer technology agnostic platforms to build applications upon (think ServiceNow)

Specialization of focus (e.g., Q-CTRL and Quantum Benchmark focus on helping QC manufacturers)

Except Microsoft, all are small VC/private firms


Quantum Computing Consultancies & ISVs

Accenture Research

Cambridge Quantum Computing

Chicago Quantum

Individuals / Gaming Firms

ISARA (security)

QuantFi (Finance)

QxBranch (now Rigetti)

Zapata Computing

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Typically small teams looking for clients and productization ideas (e.g., software or algorithm)

Typically have a preferred technology stack

Can build software for simulators, quantum systems, or hybrid setups

Except Accenture, all are small VC/private firms

No commercial ‘production’ workloads

* We see research and speakers from Boston Consulting Group on the conference circuit.

Vendor / Country Quantum Scope Access Model


Full Stack, Universal, Gate QC Providers

Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) & Chinese Academy of Sciences / China

11 Qubits (made by CAS) Quantum Simulation (up to 81 Qubits

TaiZhang)

Cloud Access - CAS computer via Aliyun cloud

Alpine Quantum Technologies / Austria

5 Qubits (U of Innsbruck) Accessed via IBM Qiskit (@ University of Innsbruck)

Google AI / USA 54 Qubits (Sycamore) Cloud Access (for expert users)

Honeywell Quantum Solutions / USA First system expected in 2019 99.997% individual qubit fidelity Future: via Microsoft Azure Quantum

IBM Research / USA 10 systems, 5-20 Qubits, in IBM Q Network. Latest has 53 Qubits

Accessed via IBM Qiskit, the IBM Cloud & the IBM Q Network

IonQ / Canada

11 (up to 79) Qubit configurable system

Built 3 QC, not publicly available Raised $55M in 2019

Future: via Microsoft Azure Quantum

Rigetti Computing / USA 16 Qubits (Aspen 4) Raised $119.5M in 9 rounds Cloud Access via their Forest SDK

Xanadu / CanadaQubit count unknown

Using photons to drive QPUs USD $32M Series A in 2019

Cloud Access via PennyLane and Strawberry Fields SDK / Simulator

• Firms tend to manufacture their own processors

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Ion Trap

Superconducting

Photons



Quantum Annealer & Simulation Providers

D-Wave Systems / Canada

Full Stack Solution Quantum Annealers / Adibatic Optimization, ISING & QUBO

5,000+ Qubits (Advantage)

On-Premise Installation; Cloud Access (Leap), Demo &

Timeshare

ATOS Bull / FranceQuantum Simulation on high-DRAM

Bull server Universal Quantum / Gates

On-Premise Installation Remote Access - TBC

Fujitsu IT Ltd. / Japan

Quantum Annealing Simulation Digital Annealing Unit (DAU)

Optimization, ISING & QUBO Quantum-Inspired Hardware

On-Premise Installation Cloud Access - TBC

Toshiba / Japan Quantum Annealing Simulation (SBM) software on AWS Cloud Access to software via AWS

• D-Wave is the only quantum hardware provider ever to ship a completed, customer-ready QC system • There are other providers of simulation software (including open source Python libraries)

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Simulator

Superconducting



Hardware Startups - Funded to build a computer

Atom Computing Neutral Atom Trap Hardware (like an Ion Trap but with neutral atoms) TBD

Bleximo / USASupercomputing Hardware &

Quantum Accelerators USD $1.5M funding

TBD

IQM / Espoo, Finland Quantum hardware USD $13M funding TBD

Quantum Circuits Inc. / USAHardware Stack

USD $18M Series A funding to build a QC

Microsoft Azure Quantum & TBD

• More are being added over time. This is an area of VC/funding interest.

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Hardware Component Providers

Bluefors Ltd / Finland Dilution Refrigerators NA

ID Quantique / Switzerland Secure Communications (QKD) and random number generators (QRNG)

Hardware sales (data center and end-user devices)

Intel Corporation / USAQuantum Processors & Full Stack

Software 49 Qubits (Tangle Lake)

NA; sends silicon wafer output to TU Delft (research partner)

Software available online

Micron Technologies / USA Cryogenic DRAM NA

M Squared LTD / UK Lasers and photonics, SI NA

Rambus / USA Cryogenic DRAM NA

• Intel seems to be far along, and is investigating two technologies: Supercomputing & Silicon Spin qubits • Quantum RAM and Quantum Networking are significant technology research challenges (not yet discovered) • We believe that hardware components manufacturers have a significant market opportunity (think DASD/SAN/NAS markets)

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Software Vendors

Microsoft Station Q / USA Quantum SDK & Simulator Free / Open Source Software Runs on Microsoft Azure

Quantum Benchmark / USA Help quantum computer manufacturers scale Term licensed software & consulting

QC-Ware / USA Customer access model to quantum computers & simulators Membership and time sharing

QCTRL / Australia

Help visualize and mitigate noise, decoherence, and errors in quantum

computers. Quantum Firmware USD $15M funding

TBC

ETH Zurich (Project Q) / Switzerland Software to access and use IBMQ or local simulation hardware TBC

1QBit / Canada

Hardware agnostic platform and services, to host quantum and inspired

industry applications. Partnering widely

USD $45M Series B funding

Consulting & Projects, TBC

Aliro / USAHardware agnostic software platform

(write once, run anywhere in QC) Raised USD $2.7M

Consulting

• Providers usually offer a mix of simulation and quantum computing approaches

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Consultancies / ISVs

ISARA Corp / Canada Quantum safe security solutions Consulting & Technology, TBC

Zapata Computing / USA

Consulting services (to become quantum ready) and Zapata OS

(hardware agnostic quantum toolkit) Consulting firm

Raised USD $21M in April

Consulting & Projects, TBC

QxBranch (now Rigetti Consulting) Applications Consulting & Projects, TBC

Chicago Quantum Quantum Strategy & Software, PQC & Vendor & IT Management Consulting & Projects, TBC

Cambridge Quantum Computing / USA

Quantum computing solution provider, including t|ket> compiler, EUMEN chemistry & materials platform, +

Consulting

QuantFi / France Create quantum algorithms in financial services Consulting

Individuals / firms Quantum Games (Google Play Store) Download on mobile device

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In hardware…we see:

Universal, gate-based systems (superconducting qubits) were used to show quantum supremacy by Google, and are used by IBM and Rigetti. However, IBM now supports Ion Trap hardware in QISKIT.

Ion Trap hardware is the focus of US Government grants, Honeywell, IonQ , AQT, and others.

Other QPU technologies are being explored (e.g., photons, electrons, single atoms, diamond NV)

Quantum Annealing, a specific analog hardware use-case (optimization), is the sole domain of D-Wave Systems. We wee simulation of this technology by Toshiba and Fujitsu.

We see competitive performance on today’s quantum simulators

Most providers are offering access to their quantum computers via public cloud; only D-Wave Systems has shipped product.

No vendor has ‘cracked the code’ on many elements of the hardware stack required for scaling and commercial enterprise usage (e.g., Quantum RAM, entangled disk & tape, I/O, networking, operating systems, and database systems).

Most systems are accessed via graphical, low level programming languages or via common ‘code as you think’ languages like Python with open source libraries, that are compiled at run-time.

We see valuable ‘white space’ in supporting ‘stack’ technologies

Due to the bimodal split of hardware vendors (F100 vs. VC/private firms), we believe successful smaller firms will be acquired by larger firms as they develop scalable and deployable technologies.

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In the software platform stack…

Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Google have open sourced their software platforms.

D-Wave has Ocean, which is proprietary, as it controls and protects its analog hardware from damage.

Rigetti (Forest) and Xanadu (Penny Lane) may be proprietary (we cannot tell)

1QBit has partnered with Microsoft and focuses on the chemicals and materials sciences use-cases

QC-Ware has created a cross-platform stack, agnostic stack and sells run-time per hour (e.g., with expert support)

Proprietary applications to help quantum computing manufacturers include Quantum Benchmarking and Q-CTRL).

We see applications taking a proprietary/licensing path forward (e.g., Quantum Benchmarking Inc.)

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In applications, we see:

We see applications to help quantum computer makers by Quantum Benchmarking Inc., and Q-CTRL).

We see end-user games using, teaching, or simulating quantum computing

Applications, libraries, algorithms, and procedures are written and run via Python language.

Applications (mostly functions) can also be written via gate operations (graphical programming language)

Application code is compiled to run on specific hardware platforms (and sometimes tailored for specific processors and methods (e.g., parsed to fit on available qubits, forward and reverse annealing, with pause)

The programs are loaded, run, and results are provided in a binary string (1s and 0s). There is no storage of interim data (e.g., no batch or checkpoint/restart).

Due to short run times (< 1 second), we need to write short, recursive programs with shallow logic strings

Creating applications requires deep, multi-disciplinary expertise to create inputs, outputs, logic and user experience.

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In Consulting and ISV markets, we see:

Very little activity in the public domain, very little hiring, and few announced ‘independent’ engagements.

We see patents and proprietary toolsets to protect IP and create differentiation

In our space, potential clients want to do joint research or support education programs.

There is no ‘killer application’ to drive consulting around a complex quantum solution…yet

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Supporting Slides

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We see a bimodal grouping by market capitalization

Hardware & software providers are very large technology firms or very small VC/Startups

Large include: Microsoft, IBM, Google, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Intel, Alibaba, Atos, and Honeywell. Typical EV (valuation) > $100B (up to USD 1 Trillion).

Small include: D-Wave, Rigetti, Xanadu, Atom, AQT, IonQ, ID Quantique, ISARA (security in CA), and other labor-based firms with less than 50 employees. We also see university spinoffs. D-Wave equity valuation in Harris & Harris filings (equity holder).

Small firms are often VC funded and will likely be acquired by larger firms as they develop scalable and deployable technologies.

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