Alice & Bob and partners awarded €16.5M to slash quantum computing costs

Quantum computing hardware developer Alice & Bob and academic partners ENS de Lyon and Mines Paris-PSL today announced the receipt of a €16.5 million innovation grant, a France 2030 initiative operated by  Bpifrance, France's public investment bank. 

Alice & Bob is based in Paris and Boston and is working to create the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Founded in 2020, the company has raised €30 million in funding, hired over 95 employees and demonstrated experimental results surpassing those of technology giants such as Google or IBM. 

Alice & Bob specialises in cat qubits, a pioneering technology developed by the company's founders and later adopted by Amazon.

The funded project, called "Cat Factory," brings industry and government partners to tackle quantum computing's critical issues across various enabling technologies, including nanofabrication, chip design and validation, digital tools and electronic control. 

The research from the three partners aims to accelerate quantum computing by enhancing the efficiency of the entire stack, reducing costs, and accelerating market readiness.  

The goal is to develop a new optimised architecture for fault-tolerant quantum computing by 2027 that will allow the following: 

• Reduction of the number of control lines per cat qubit from 4.5 to 2 
• Reduction of the readout lines per cat qubit from 1 to 0.2 

To achieve this degree of optimisation, the infrastructure of enabling technologies surrounding the  Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) will be updated to: 
• Increase the number of analogue ports per rack from 60 to 180, dividing the footprint of control electronics by three. 
• Increase control lines per cryostat from 200 to 2000 using next-generation cabling technology. 

According to Theau  Peronnin, CEO of Alice & Bob:

"We are honoured to be entrusted with making quantum computing useful earlier.
Our plan, centred around cat qubits, addresses the real challenges of  quantum computing headfirst, enabling massive savings in energy and end-user costs." 

The projected cost of quantum computation due to cryogenics and the control of large sets of qubits presents a barrier to widespread adoption. Alice and Bob will use the funding to optimise quantum computation, from design to manufacturing and infrastructure, to make quantum computers ten times cheaper to build and ready for market three years earlier.  

"Quantum computing algorithms require hundreds of logical qubits, which translates to thousands to millions of physical qubits," said Florent Di Meglio, the project's lead at Mines Paris—PSL.

 "Cat Factory  aims to reach 100 logical qubits with only three cryostats, a dramatic reduction in the hardware needed for  running a useful quantum computer." 

To achieve this goal, the partners will work on the whole quantum computer architecture and the infrastructure of enabling technologies surrounding it. The project's cornerstone, the cat qubit, already reduces the number of physical qubits required to build a logical one by a factor of 60. 

Paul-François Fournier, Executive Director, ofInnovation at Bpifrance, shared:

"We are delighted to support Alice & Bob in its development, which aims to accelerate quantum computing's progress. This support reflects Bpifrance's strong ambitions in terms of disruptive  innovation."

Lead image: Alice & Bob.