IonQ hits 1,000 entanglement events per second between a trapped ion and a solid state memory

[AEWThomas47]

IonQ says it has reached entanglement rates above 1,000 events per second between a trapped ion qubit and a silicon vacancy quantum memory, The Quantum Insider reports. The two are linked by a photonic interconnect. The company says that is more than four times faster than the previous trapped ion record, which was set by Chris Monroe's group at Duke University. Duke also collaborated on this new work, so it is a case of the same people beating their own mark

IonQ is calling it the fastest interconnect rate between qubits on any platform. Those figures come from the company, but there is a preprint on arXiv (2610.10705) for anyone who wants to dig into the details. Silicon vacancy centres are defects in diamond that can store quantum information and talk to photons well. Pairing them with ions is an unusual mix of technologies

The work feeds into IonQ's role in DARPA's HARQ programme. HARQ is about building high speed interconnects that can link different types of qubits together. IonQ expects the architecture to extend to neutral atoms and, with transducers, to superconducting systems. This demonstration used trapped ions only, though, so that part is still a plan rather than a result

There are some quotable lines in the release. Chief scientist Chris Monroe said moving qubits through photons will be necessary in any large scale quantum computer. Mihir Bhaskar of SkyWater said the work shows a photonic interconnect need not be a bottleneck for distributed quantum computing. CEO Niccolo de Masi compared it with how classical systems grew, saying quantum systems will scale in much the same way

IonQ also mentioned sales of its memory and interconnect platform, one to the University of Maryland announced in April and one to SDT in South Korea announced in September. So this is not just a lab curiosity, it is part of a product line. Interconnects keep coming up in every roadmap story we post here. This week alone we have had Quantum Source's QS-LINK and now this

How important are interconnects compared with building bigger single chips? And do you think mixing qubit types will ever be practical?

IonQ Demonstrates 1,000 Entanglement Events per Second in Quantum Interconnectthequantuminsider.com