#classicalcomputing

New York University News

Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand secured $1 million in congressionally directed expenditure for New York University (NYU) to invest in advanced scientific research and U.S. competitiveness. This investment aims to boost NYU's quantum science research, which could transform materials science, quantum computers, quantum communications, and national technological leadership.

The funding was announced during Fiscal Year 2026 federal appropriations. Congress allocates funding items for scientific, academic, and local projects. This funding will give NYU a Thermal Laser Epitaxy (TLE) system, a cutting-edge quantum research instrument. This will improve the university's experimental capacity and advance quantum materials and technology.

Strategic Quantum Science Investment

Quantum computing, sensing, and materials research are breakthrough topics of science in the 21st century. These technologies could exceed conventional computers in data processing, encryption, and physical system modeling. But precise tools and infrastructure to operate with and observe matter at the atomic level are needed to realize this potential.

NYU plans to buy a sophisticated TLE system that offers atomic-level control over ultra-pure material layers with this federal funding. Such systems are needed to make quantum computers and quantum sensing materials. NYU's investment in TLE positions it to lead materials-by-design research for quantum applications like secure communication platforms and next-generation semiconductors.

Combining Industry and Academic Innovation

NYU President Linda G. Mills told lawmakers the importance of upgrading research infrastructure and the funding's wider consequences. NYU and research community members stated on social media that the federal funding will boost NYU's experimental capabilities and attract industrial and academic partners.

“They are grateful to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand for making this important investment in quantum research equipment possible,” Mills added, reflecting NYU's leadership. She said the funds will support research that could benefit advanced manufacturing, technology, finance, and other areas, reflecting quantum physics' multidisciplinary nature.

Quantum physics specialists say research facilities like NYU are crucial to translating scientific discoveries into practical applications. Colleges provide labs with cutting-edge equipment to train workers who can drive innovation and ensure the US remains a global leader in a quantum-impacted technology environment.

Support from Senate and Congress

Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, senators on key spending committees, helped secure the funding. Their campaign is part of larger efforts to divert federal funds to state research facilities, particularly in fields with economic and technical potential.

In the same budget cycle as NYU's assistance, the senators announced considerable government spending on infrastructure, education, job creation, and community health projects in New York. These allotments show how targeted congressional investments can boost growth in several areas.

Schumer has long supported federal financing for cutting-edge research, and as Senate Majority Leader, he shapes science and technology policy. His legislation on high-performance computing and semiconductor research complements NYU's quantum research commitment. The increased NYU funding for research equipment is part of a federal focus on scientific competitiveness.

How Quantum Affects the Nation and Economy

The quantum race—often portrayed as a competition between nations and corporations—has major geopolitical implications. China and EU members have launched many quantum endeavors to lead sensing, secure communications, and quantum computing. The U.S. government and academic institutions have invested to maintain its leadership in this subject.

Quantum computing could revolutionize numerical simulation and optimization-intensive fields like materials science, drug development, cryptography, and financial modeling. Quantum computers can perform calculations 10 times faster than classical computers, enabling previously unachievable solutions. However, years of theoretical research and robust experimental infrastructure are needed to reach that potential, making NYU's TLE system and other tools crucial.

Beyond scholarly interest, quantum research funding boosts the economy. Universities that lead quantum science attract talented researchers, students, private funding, and industry partnerships. Innovation ecosystems enable high-tech enterprises and create skilled jobs. Long-term economic competitiveness for New York and the US depends on creating such ecosystems.

The Research Community Responds

The academic and research communities are excited about NYU's funding announcement. Academics and researchers applauded the federal money surge on social media, saying it may speed up university work. Some commenters stressed the importance of introducing TLE technology to the US since it can reduce dependency on imported equipment and offer indigenous materials scientists an edge.

STEM education is encouraged by the funding, say educators and scientists. By using cutting-edge research tools in their classrooms, NYU can increase experiential learning and prepare students for careers in digital industries.

Looking Ahead:

The monies available currently can buy hardware, but NYU's aims likely go beyond that. The institution is becoming a regional quantum research center by partnering on physics, engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics projects.

The cutting-edge machine learning framework Dissipative Relaxation Transfer Learning (DIRTL) trains neural networks to accurately mimic complicated physical systems, especially high-amplitude resonant ones. The approach addresses stability issues that cause typical computational models to fail by using a two-stage curriculum learning process with "artificial damping".

KAIST Researchers Solve ‘Resonance Problem’ with New Machine Learning Framework

KAIST researchers Sunghyun Nam, Chan Y. Park, and Min Seok Jang made a breakthrough in physics-informed computation. Dissipative Relaxation Transfer Learning (DIRTL) makes neural networks more stable and data-efficient for forecasting high-complexity systems like quantum photonic devices and electromagnetic sensors.

Challenge: Why Resonances Defy Models

Conventional physics simulations often encounter high-amplitude resonance, where constructive interference or feedback spikes response amplitudes. These spikes hinder machine learning for many reasons:

Resonant spikes in training data deviate greatly from the general distribution of non-resonant samples. Machine learning optimizers can be destabilized by huge amplitudes, reducing prediction accuracy and performance. Data Scarcity: Capturing these rare but crucial physical traits requires vast volumes of computationally expensive training data. Researchers tested a 1D multi-wavelength binary grating and saw similar difficulties. Although most samples were non-resonant, extremely concentrated fields with huge amplitudes created a “long tail” in the data distribution that standard networks struggled to represent.

The Two-Stage DIRTL Curriculum

The physically grounded, two-stage DIRTL training approach uses loss-regularized optimization. This method “smooths” AI learning.

Stage 1: Artificial Damping Pre-training

Instead of training on raw, high-amplitude data, the model is first exposed to a smoothed dataset. A small fictional material loss (artificial damping) is added to the physical system. This damping broadens strong resonant modes and decreases extreme field amplitudes, creating a “gentler” learning landscape that lets the network record global modal information.

Second stage: True Physics fine-tuning

This network is reliable and fine-tuned on the original lossless dataset. With the original resonant behavior restored, the model applies pre-training features to high-complexity physical events.

Effective and durable

DIRTL has performed well on the Fourier Neural Operator (FNO) and UNet neural networks. Performance indicators include:

FNO reduced prediction error by two-fold compared to typical training methods. Sample Efficiency: With nine-fold sample efficiency, the framework achieves good accuracy with little training data. Numerical convergence: Simulations from 650nm to 750nm used 81 Fourier orders to ensure convergence. Versatility: The approach was architecture-agnostic and reliable in multiple training settings and multitasking conditions.

Quantum Computing and Science Impact

DIRTL was originally used in electromagnetic simulations, but its name and principles are relevant to open quantum systems, which explore how quantum systems interact with their environments and lose quantum coherence.

Research into DIRTL-like techniques in quantum environments is developing for several reasons:

The exact operation of qubits requires machine learning to produce control pulses. Quantum hardware noise and dissipation can be predicted by classical networks. Understanding dissipation is essential for increasing quantum coherence durations. Using destructive interference in noise sources can enhance coherence length tenfold, according to new research. Improved, data-efficient models like DIRTL can reduce classical computation burden in hybrid quantum-classical algorithms.

Future: DIRTL expansion

DIRTL's performance reflects a trend of merging machine learning and physics to advance computational modeling. The direct incorporation of physical knowledge into the learning process makes DIRTL applicable beyond its intended scope.

Future effects may occur in:

Photonic quantum computers require microcavity and waveguide resonant mode predictions. Quantum Materials: Many materials exhibit resonant properties and collective excitations that are hard to explain with little data. Distributed Quantum Systems: Researchers must use robust simulation tools to develop and optimize distributed quantum processor networks and maintain entanglement.

In conclusion

Unisys News

With the publishing of a peer-reviewed research paper in AIP Advances, Unisys (NYSE: UIS) reached an important industrial technology milestone. The mathematical dilemma that costs the global supply chain $100 billion a year is solved by next-generation quantum computing in Analyzing Performance of Commercial Quantum Annealing Solvers for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

This discovery advances quantum technology from academic theory to industry use in transportation and travel.

Why Routing is “NP-Hard” Mathematically

The CVRP is Unisys' research focus. The task seems simple: how can a fleet of vehicles deliver things to clients at the lowest cost while meeting weight and capacity limits?

However, mathematicians consider CVRP “NP-hard” for several reasons:

Exponential complexity: More distribution stations and trucks on a route equal more combinations. Unlimited Route Combinations: A fleet of a few dozen trucks has more route combinations than atoms in the universe. Classical Silicon limits computation: Current silicon-based computers cannot calculate all outcomes. They use “heuristics”—educated guesses that often fail to find the ideal path. Classical computing wastes millions in fuel savings and carbon reductions by not finding the ideal.

Quantum Annealing: A Specialized Optimization Method

The Unisys study evaluates quantum annealing, a quantum computing technique for optimization issues. Quantum annealers duplicate physical processes to find the “lowest energy state” while IBM and Google's “gate-model” quantum computers perform extensive calculations. In logistics, this “lowest energy state” means the cheapest method.

Key Research Variables

The study reveals that two primary elements affect quantum solution performance compared to classical systems:

Problem Size: Total network delivery stops. Vehicle limits and delivery requirements restrict density. Unisys has mapped these features to help logistics firms determine when and how to add quantum hardware to their IT stacks.

Economic and Environmental Issues

This result has huge implications for a global economy under decarbonization pressure. Even little route efficiency improvements can have huge environmental benefits.

Estimated Quantum Optimisation Impact Fuel SavingsLarge carriers can save millions of gallons of gasoline by reducing mileage by 1%. Shipping emissions could drop by nearly 1% with quantum-enhanced routing. Early adopters can innovate and stand out in crowded markets with quantum capabilities. The Unisys Quantum Advisory Service Bridges the Gap Unisys' Quantum Advisory Service helps clients transition to the "Quantum Decade." This consulting arm helps Fortune 500 companies and large organizations navigate technology development.

Primary service aims are:

Finding “quantum-ready” issues in an organization that offer the fastest return on investment. Roadmap Development: Create strategic adoption plans to help firms "flip the switch" when quantum computing surpasses classical computation. Create a quantum-savvy workforce for next-generation computing. Resource allocation informs technological choices that promote sustainable growth and reduce waste.

From UNIVAC to Quantum: Innovation Legacy

Unisys has 150 years of technological growth, including this study. From typewriters and the first commercial computer to cloud, AI, and digital office solutions, the corporation has been around.

A wider network of cooperation and research supports this latest quantum physics attempt:

Cybersecurity Research: Unisys studied quantum-enhanced cybersecurity, which balances datasets for more accurate threat identification. Academic Collaboration: The Chicago Quantum Exchange member trains quantum talent at premier research institutes. Global Recognition: Unisys delivered several papers at IEEE Quantum Week 2025 and the IEEE International Conference on Quantum Artificial Intelligence 2025, including the AIP publication. To conclude

Unisys suggests that a different form of physics, not faster silicon processors, may be the key to the next significant operational efficiency gain in transportation, financial services, and pharmaceuticals.

Quantum Revolution

Only “theoretical notebooks of physicists” and science fiction imagined quantum computers. Quantum technology has gone from a distant “what if” to a rapidly expanding reality that is altering human problem-solving as we approach 2026. Powered by decades of NSF financing, the “Quantum Revolution” is poised to alter society like the transistor.

Non-binary: Quantum leap understanding

This revolution’s scope can only be understood by understanding the core difference from classical computing. Standard computers, from smartphones to supercomputers, process information using quantum bits, binary units of 0 or 1.

Instead, quantum computers employ qubits. A superposition of qubits can represent a 0, a 1, or a sophisticated combination of both utilizing quantum physics. When qubits become “entangled,” one’s state instantly influences another, regardless of distance. This allows quantum systems to process millions of possibilities concurrently, enabling massive parallel calculations.

Breakthrough Years 2025–2026

Recently, quantum architecture has moved from lab to scalable systems with “real-world” achievements. In 2025, NSF Physics Frontiers Centers researchers crushed two records.

The first grid of 6,100 neutral-atom qubits was secured by laser beams. This has the most controllable qubits observed. The “Holy Grail” of mistake correction is the researchers’ ability to move these atoms across the grid while keeping their quantum properties.

Researchers who directly observed quantum mechanics in superconducting circuits won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2025. Starting with NSF-funded quantum tunneling research in the mid-1980s, this groundbreaking research led to the development of superconducting qubits used by major corporations and the introduction of Microsoft Majorana-1 chip.

Overcoming the “Uncomputable”

More is possible with these technologies in three key industries:

Medicine and biotechnology: Classical computers cannot recreate molecular bonds’ exquisite complexity. By replicating these interactions at the atomic level, quantum computers could cut medication development time from decades to months.

Climate and Material Science: Quantum algorithms are being used to find “room-temperature” superconductors and better carbon capture catalysts, which could end climate-threatening emissions. Since quantum computers may overcome encryption, the NSF and DOE are developing Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and quantum networks that leverage entanglement to make eavesdropping “physically impossible”.

Issues with the “Fragile” Qubit

Even with this momentum, fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) systems that work for lengthy periods of time are still far off. Heating and electromagnetic noise can break qubits, which are notoriously brittle. The term “Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum” (NISQ) describes effective but error-prone devices.

These systems also require dilution refrigerators to operate at near-absolute zero temperatures. For these challenges and to bring practical computing closer to reality, the NSF is pushing research into innovative qubit technologies and error correction.

Create a National Ecosystem

The U.S. government wishes to build a quantum ecosystem, not just hardware. The following are:

The National Quantum Virtual Laboratory (NQVL): A cloud-based effort to spread quantum hardware and software innovation beyond elite universities.

Founded in 2020, Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes fund extensive cooperation endeavors to build the basics of scalable quantum computers and educate the workforce.

Support for Innovation: America’s Seed Fund empowers entrepreneurs building software subsystems and qubit technologies to collaborate with government labs, academic institutions, and businesses.

Talent Gap and Further Education

With technology, the talent gap is the largest challenge. From 2018, quantum-literate professionals are in demand. NSF investments in the National Q-12 Education Partnership serve teachers and students. Colorado School of Mines launched the first Bachelor’s degree in Quantum Systems Engineering to train future scientists and engineers.

Finally,

Equal1, an Irish quantum semiconductor pioneer, closed a $60 million (USD) fundraising round in a significant move for the global technology sector. Quantum physics moves from lab to business infrastructure with this investment. The funding is designed to accelerate silicon-based quantum computer research and the global launch of the company's flagship product, the “datacenter-ready” Bell-1 quantum server.

As worldwide organizations struggle with classical computing's rising energy and cost needs, primarily caused by generative AI, Equal1's technology offers a fresh solution. The company advises using the same silicon technology that powered the digital revolution to power HPC in the future, removing the need for special settings or materials.

CMOS Technology Bridges the “Quantum Gap”

“Bespoke” engineering has long defined quantum computers. Large-scale quantum computers have traditionally required multi-million-pound investments, custom production facilities, and cooling systems that can reach deep space temperatures. These devices also need PhD-level physicists on-site to maintain basic functioning.

Equal1 challenges this status quo utilizing standard CMOS technology. Smartphone chips and laptop CPUs are created similarly. Equal1 intends to commercialize quantum power using this proven technology, turning a lab curiosity into a scalable, producible product.

Equal1 CEO Jason Lynch says this funding marks the company's transition from development to implementation. He stressed that quantum technology will be the next step when artificial intelligence pushes classical computing to its financial and physical limits if it can be developed and applied as readily as the rest of the technology stack. Equal1 uses regular silicon processors to turn quantum technology into deployable infrastructure.

Strategic Global Investor Coalition

Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) led the $60 million financing round, demonstrating national commitment to quantum semiconductor leadership. Many institutional and deep-tech investors participated:

The Atlantic Bridge

Fund of the European Innovation Council

Matterwave Ventures

Enterprise Ireland

Elkstone

TNO Ventures

European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund involvement is crucial for regional technology strategy. Svetoslava Georgieva, EIC Fund Board Chair, said Equal1's CMOS-compatible strategy fits Europe's semiconductor and quantum sovereignty goals. This method helps Equal1 avoid the “valley of death” that can occur when companies build new, specialized manufacturing infrastructure by using existing fabrication units.

Economic Case for Silicon

Equal1's value proposition centers on “Semiconductor Economics”. The traditional semiconductor industry increases reliability with each production process iteration and lowers costs with volume. Equal1 may use silicon to access a trillion-dollar global supply chain instead of starting from scratch.

This method is used in the Bell-1 quantum server. We focus real-world demands over qubit quantities and make it easy to integrate into current datacenters. Bell-1 highlights include:

Easy deployment: The server fits into ordinary server racks, making it compatible with current IT environments.

Power Efficiency: The Bell-1 reduces the quantum "cooling tax" by functioning at far higher relative temperatures than superconducting qubits, which require significant cooling. Seamless Integration: It works seamlessly with GPUs and CPUs in a hybrid HPC environment for instant real-world application.

Gerry Maguire, Equal1 Board Director and Atlantic Bridge General Partner, says the company has moved past “breakthrough innovation” and is in commercialization. Quantum “lab science” investors worried of long development durations must make this move.

AI Energy Crisis: Quantum Solution

This funding infusion is vital because Generative AI has put an unprecedented strain on hardware budgets and global power infrastructures. Classical silicon is reaching its energy efficiency and miniaturization limits.

Equal1 touts their technique as an AI stack advancement, not merely a research tool. Quantum servers might perform AI's complex optimization and machine learning tasks with a fraction of the energy used by GPU farms. Because of this, the technology may solve the AI energy crisis.

The “Quantum Standard” Roadmap

Equal1 has a defined strategic goal for the coming years using its new funding. The firm plans to:

Scale the Engineering Team: They'll hire quantum software and semiconductor designers. Accelerate the Bell-1 Roadmap to speed up quantum server release. Expand Globally: Equal1 wants to expand in the US and Europe while keeping its base in Ireland to meet HPC center and large enterprise client demand.

Equal1 aims to become the “quantum standard for HPC”. If the startup can offer quantum power via a silicon device, it will democratize access to one of the most powerful computing resources.

In conclusion

Investment in Equal1 supports Silicon Quantum. Even when trapped ions and photonics are enhanced, the “silicon-first” concept offers the easiest path to mass manufacturing by using industry infrastructure.

Erasure Qubit/Superconductor

One of the biggest obstacles to quantum computing is noise, which contaminates qubits' sensitive quantum states. Classical bits are robustly 0 or 1, while qubits are delicate superpositions that can collapse under the slightest disturbance. Scaling these devices to solve real-world concerns requires scientists to discover and repair these faults without deleting quantum information.

These qubits make mistake detection and error repair easier, which could speed up the development of fault-tolerant quantum devices.

Tradition Error Correction Issues

Erasing qubits is revolutionary, but the “steep cost” of traditional quantum error correction (QEC) must be considered. A single logical qubit carries real computing data over hundreds or thousands of physical qubits in conventional QEC.

A physical qubit's random “bit flip” or “phase flip” requires complicated algorithms to detect and rectify. Since these flaws are hard to discover until they taint the system, the computational burden is high. Due of their complexity, large gadgets are expensive and difficult to build reliably.

Wondering about superconducting erasing qubits? Alternatives include superconducting erasure qubits, which cause a predicted flaw called an erasure.

Silent data corruption is like traditional qubit errors. When an error occurs, an erasure qubit communicates data loss. Understanding where and when a qubit fails simplifies error correction.

Pioneering Dual-Rail Encoding

This breakthrough uses dual-rail encoding. This setup stores logical qubits in two physical superconducting qubits.

Quantum states |10⟩ and |01⟩ represent logical ‘0’ and ‘1’, when there is a quantum excitation in one or both qubits.

The Erasure Signal: For errors, such as excitation decay, the system enters the |00⟩ state.

As the change to the |00⟩ state signifies an erasure event, researchers can discover the error without destroying the remaining quantum information. When it fails, the system raises its hand because the fault is “heralded” and can be repaired with fewer “helper” qubits.

“Noise Engineering” and Efficiency In noise engineering, this development is a trend. Qubit developers are tailoring systems to discover the most common faults by design rather than treating hardware noise as a nuisance that should be addressed via brute-force redundancy. Computer hardware and software are co-designed for efficiency in classical computing.

Research simulations show this architecture's benefits:

Simulating "surface codes," a well-known error-correction system employing superconducting erasing qubits, yields threshold improvements of over five times over traditional noise models. Upper Error Tolerance: When the error's location is known, the fault-tolerance threshold might triple from 19% to 50%. Reduced Overhead: Since the system knows the fault location, “decoding” and correcting bits is more efficient, using fewer physical qubits to save a logical one. Fermionic Antiflatness Quantifies Quantum Non-Gaussianity.

Fault Tolerance Race Globally An innovation ecosystem includes this study. Journal publications by Shouzhen Gu and colleagues suggest superconducting erasing qubit methods to outperform standard superconducting implementations. Other teams' dynamic error suppression solutions can reduce detection noise by two orders of magnitude.

QuantuMRI from Fermilab and NYU Langone Meets NIH Challenge

Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging qMRI

A multidisciplinary scientific team led by Fermilab's Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center and NYU Langone Health was named a finalist in the first NIH Quantum Computing Challenge, advancing diagnostics. After finishing in the top ten in the competition's first round, QuantuMRI got $10,000 and the chance to advance.

This work integrates clinical medicine, quantum information science, and high-energy physics. Quantum computing could revolutionize quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) by giving doctors unprecedented accuracy and speed in diagnosing complex diseases.

Beyond Gross Structures: qMRI Promise

MRI provides crisp, non-invasive images of soft-tissue structures and is a standard diagnostic tool. Conventional MRI collects signals from atomic magnetic moments, such as hydrogen atoms in the body responding to radiofrequency pulses and strong external magnetic fields. Reconstructing these reactions into detailed representations allows clinicians to analyze gross anatomical aspects.

QuantuMRI, on the other hand, strives to go beyond conventional imaging with quantitative MRI (qMRI). Instead of only imaging tissue structure, qMRI measures and describes subtle biophysical characteristics like the following:

Relaxation time

Rates of diffusion

Transfer magnetization

These assessments can detect compositional changes, microstructural changes, and early illness indications that conventional imaging misses. Such insights are crucial for early detection, illness tracking, and personalized therapy of cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases.

Computer bottleneck

Although promising, qMRI is very complicated. Modeling complicated human tissue signal exchanges requires a lot of processing power. Traditional classical computing methods struggle to construct high-resolution, exact simulations. QMRI is hard to apply in clinical settings because standard systems lack the processing power for real-time, high-precision diagnosis.

This is quantum computing's revolutionary advantage. Superposition and entanglement allow quantum processors to simulate processes that classical computers cannot or would take too long. The QuantuMRI method models tissue responses under MRI settings more accurately and effectively than any traditional option, enabling scalable, reproducible qMRI solutions.

A multidisciplinary powerhouse

QuantuMRI's success relies on multidisciplinary collaboration. The SQMS Center, a DOE national quantum research hub led by Fermilab, specializes on superconducting quantum materials and qubit technology. NYU Langone Health's Center for Biomedical Imaging offers advanced research and clinical expertise.

QuantuMRI's key players come from numerous institutions, including:

NYU Grossman School of Medicine radiology professor Riccardo Lattanzi.

NYU Langone Health's Jose Cruz Serralles.

Fermilab's Oluwadara Ogunkoya and Doga Kurkcuoglu.

Norm Tubman, NASA Ames Research Center.

Riccardo Lattanzi said this partnership “highlights the potential for quantum technology to transform medical imaging and accelerate the clinical translation of qMRI, helping doctors make better decisions and moving us closer to precise, personalized medicine”.

NIH Challenge and 2027 Roadmap

NCATS organizes the NIH Quantum Computing Challenge to foster biomedical-quantum computing innovation. Teams can tackle crucial topics like medication discovery and improved diagnostics.

After winning the first round, the Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging qMRI team progressed to the second. This level requires technical benchmarking, extensive development, and validation in early clinical settings for finalists. At the end of 2027, winners will be picked based on performance, innovation, and clinical adoption.

Big Picture: Fermilab Quantum Innovation

QuantuMRI was created as part of Fermilab's SQMS Center and quantum research ecosystem. The center uses Fermilab's superconducting and particle accelerator technology to develop quantum systems.

The latest SQMS advancements are:

Improved Coherence Times: Researchers have developed new qubit fabrication methods that address material decoherence, making quantum processors more reliable.

“Quantum Garages”: Large cleanrooms and dilution coolers for computing, sensing, and metrology research.

Frontier Physics: SQMS uses quantum systems to study dark matter and medicine.

According to DOE Office of High Energy Physics program manager Zachary Goff-Eldredge, this infrastructure encourages “bold, cross-disciplinary thinking” that will shape medical innovations.

The Future of Patient Care

The QuantuMRI research shows a period where quantum-enhanced imaging is a widespread therapeutic tool, despite challenges like scaling quantum systems and decreasing quantum processing “noise”. Patients may receive more personalized care and faster response.

Logic's Dawn: QuEra Gemini and the Neutral-Atom Revolution

The Boston-based pioneer QuEra Computing developed Gemini, a gate-model quantum computer with 260 neutral-atom qubits, marking a quantum computing milestone. With this announcement, the company is switching from Aquila's analog-focused capabilities to a digital, gate-based architecture for fault tolerance and logic experiments. Gemini is crucial to the industry's transition from experimental prototypes to “useful” quantum advantage.

See also NVIDIA cuStabilizer to Accelerate GPU Quantum Simulation.

Dynamic Architectural Change Gemini relies on QuEra's proprietary Dynamic Qubit Array (DQA). Google and IBM's superconducting designs differ from this one. While prior devices used qubits soldered onto a chip, Gemini uses Rubidium-87 neutral atoms. These atoms are controlled by "optical tweezers," highly concentrated laser beams that allow them to be reorganised during computation.

Mobility allows for a "zoned" architecture with two functional areas: Storage and Entanglement. The Storage Zone shields qubits from noise and maintains their coherent state. When computing, atoms enter the Entanglement Zone to perform gate operations. This technology mimics classical computing by transferring data between memory and the ALU.

All-to-all connectivity is a major benefit of this trend. Because conventional, fixed-wire qubits can only interact with their near neighbours, connecting distant qubits involves a “swap” through intermediary qubits, which uses up a lot of the system's “error budget.” However, Gemini allows Qubit A to be physically moved next to Qubit C, enabling direct operations and reducing routing errors.

Setting New Fidelity Standards

Viability depends on a quantum system's fidelity, or process precision. QuEra Computing has published industry-leading scores for the Gemini platform: 1-qubit gate integrity above 99.9% and 2-qubit above 99.2%. The system also has 99.7% SPAM fidelity.

Possibly Gemini's greatest technological achievement was magic-state distillation. Fault-tolerant quantum computing requires this process to purify “noisy” quantum states into high-fidelity levels for universal computation. QuEra Computing produced a world first by showing that output states were more accurate than inputs, illustrating the necessity for scaling algorithms that can cure their own flaws.

The Three-Year 10,000 Qubit Roadmap

QuEra's three-year strategic plan is called "Phase 1," and Gemini is the first act. Goals for the coming years are clear:

2024 (Phase 1): The Gemini system, with over 256 physical qubits and 10 logical qubits, will be launched. Logical qubits are “error-free” information created from numerous physical qubits.

2025 (Phase 2): Scaling to 3,000 physical qubits and 30 logical qubits with more advanced distillation technologies.

2026 (Phase 3): 10,000 qubits and 100 logical qubits are the aim.

Traditional supercomputers cannot run 100-logical-qubit “deep circuits” like quantum computers. This scenario suggests that the industry has entered the “Age of Fault Tolerance,” moving away from the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era, when machines were too error-prone for industrial use.

Global Momentum and Modality War

A $230 million Series B financing round in early 2025 backed the launch. Global investors including Google Quantum AI, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and NVIDIA's NVentures led this funding. This funding helps QuEra become an industrial provider.

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) constructed a Gemini-class system to demonstrate this change. The ABCI-Q supercomputer has over 2,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs. This hybrid infrastructure solves logistical, materials, and drug discovery problems.

Gemini's success shows why neutral-atom systems are leading the scaling race. Although the atoms are in a vacuum, neutral-atom technology works essentially at ambient temperature, unlike superconducting qubits, which need massive dilution refrigerators to maintain temperatures below zero. This simplifies integration into contemporary data centres.

Because Rubidium atoms are identical, there are no manufacturing faults or “bad qubits” like on silicon-based wafers. QuEra Computing's homogeneity and lower power footprint give it an advantage in the “high-stakes race” to scale and retain logical qubits.