IonQ and Cambridge open quantum innovation centre at the Cavendish Laboratory

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IonQ and the University of Cambridge have opened the IonQ Quantum Innovation Centre in the Ray Dolby Centre, the new home of the Cavendish Laboratory. The announcement comes from IonQ, and it is the company's first centre of this kind at a university. The partnership was first announced in March, and now it is up and running

A joint steering committee has picked nine first research projects. They cover quantum networking, sensing and hardware, as well as applications in chemistry, materials, finance, engineering and medicine. That is a broad spread, which suggests both sides want to explore where trapped ion technology can be most useful

Some of the experimental work is especially interesting. One project is developing tiny mirrors that collect light from trapped ions more efficiently, which could help link quantum processors together optically. Computational projects include portfolio construction, structural engineering models and mapping biological networks to find potential targets for cancer therapies

The hardware commitment is significant. IonQ will install a 256 qubit Superion quantum computer on the Cambridge campus. It will also build an entanglement distribution network with two Quantum Networking Data Centres and three networking nodes, and provide cloud access. Innovate UK will give the National Quantum Computing Centre access and compute time for three years

Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory has an extraordinary scientific history, and having a commercial quantum computer on site gives researchers a powerful new tool. For IonQ, it is a strong presence in the UK research community. Niccolo de Masi, Mete Atatüre and Jordan Shapiro are all quoted in the release

Which of the nine projects sounds most promising to you? And how valuable is it for universities to host commercial quantum hardware on campus?

IonQ | IonQ Opens First Quantum Innovation Centre at Cambridgewww.ionq.com