Quantum Insider has been closely following Stephanie Simmons and her company Photonic since its inception. Simmons, a physicist and former researcher at Harvard University, co-founded Photonic with the vision of building distributed quantum computers connected via the quantum internet. Photonic pioneered an approach using silicon spin qubits interconnected with photonic links.
As the world moves closer to realizing the revolutionary potential of quantum computing, a critical question arises: what will it take to merge discrete quantum computers into a powerful and scalable quantum internet? At the Economist Impact Event, Simmons shared insights that could shape the future of this emerging field.
Simmons began by acknowledging the substantial progress made so far as she expressed her enthusiasm, noting that he enjoyed the discussion earlier in the session about the four million qubits needed to simulate Si:P, noting how such cases usage and conversation weren’t even meaningful a few years ago.
However, she stressed that beyond single quantum devices remains the main challenge.
“If you’re working backwards from the mathematical proof of product-market fit, you really want to work backwards, well how do you put four million orders of magnitude qubits into the ground?” she said.
Photonic’s approach focuses on using photons to link spin cubes across multiple modules. As Simmons explained: “We’re working with silicon spins that are photonically coupled, so they emit telescoping photons that are entangled with the spins they left behind.”
This photonic interconnect enables a fundamentally modular and scalable architecture.
“This really changes engineering significantly because now you can imagine printing a million physical qubits and picking your favorite 100,000 because you don’t need proximity to do your logic,” Simmons said.
A key enabler is the use of LDPC quantum codes, which Simmons hailed as “excellent quantum codes that have moved the goalpost 20 years closer for all of us.” These highly efficient error correction codes allow the number of physical qubits needed per logic qubit to be drastically reduced.
Crucially, Photonic’s design addresses the barrier of distributing entanglement at scale.
“The main resource for distributed quantum computing is entanglement,” Simmons said. She drew a parallel with quantum networks, saying, “Distributing entanglement is basically all use cases for networks.”
In contrast to the traditional transfer of data on the Internet, Simmons described the distribution of entanglement as similar to the distribution of a resource such as electricity.
“You have to be smart about it: the better we get at distributing the entanglement, the faster we can run those kinds of algorithms at scale,” Simmon said.
Addressing the potential speed advantage, Simmons mentioned that it is more important to imagine the fast nature of telecom switching, noting that any two qubits can be connected regardless of their location as long as they are connected by a photonic link.
As research progresses from single prototypes to the integration of multiple modules, Simmons envisions a “nonlinear shift in user expectations and value” emerging from these distributed quantum technologies.
While major technical hurdles remain, Simmons’ thoughts give us more insight into the frontier of quantum network architecture. By prioritizing the effective distribution of entanglement as an essential resource, companies like Photonic can pave the way for quantum computers to transcend individual devices and coalesce into a powerful internet-scale structure. The race for quantum supremacy may ultimately hinge on mastering this tangled future.
Featured Image: Credit: Economist Impact
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