Two members of the Nu Quantum team attended the Optica Quantum Industry Summit 2024 in Bristol, which served as an appropriate backdrop for the quantum photonics industry to come together
Last week, Alex Moylett (Senior Quantum Theorist) and Alberto Santamato (Senior Photonics Engineer) attended the Optica Quantum Industry Summit 2024 in Bristol. This two-day summit took place at the M Shed, a museum based in a former goods shed on Bristol’s historic harbourside, which served well as a reminder of how industry has long been part of the city’s fabric, and served as an appropriate backdrop for the quantum photonics industry to come together.
Bristol is home to many quantum technology companies and the city’s historical relationship to quantum photonics and was emphasised in the opening remarks by representatives from the University of Bristol and the West of England Combined Authority, who set the stage for the rest of the conference.
In this blogpost, Alex Moylett shares their key takeaway lessons from the summit.
1. We are climbing the mountain to quantum utility
During his talk on the current state of the UK quantum ecosystem, Sir Peter Knight (UK National Quantum Technologies Programme) emphasised the scale of the work required to reach useful quantum computing as the ‘quantum computing mountain’. Referring to a figure by Andrew M. Steane (University of Oxford), which showed how many quantum operations can be implemented for a given number of qubits and error rates, Sir Peter also underlined that whilst there is work to be done, the potential impact of climbing this mountain will be transformational.
Contributions from various quantum computing startups showcased the progress that the UK quantum industry is making up this mountain. Highlights included a presentation on Oxford Ionics’ record-breaking single-qubit gate fidelities with trapped ions outlined by Clemens Matthiesen, and insights from Pete Shadbolt into PsiQuantum’s pursuit of PsiQuantum’s pursuit of improvements across the photonic quantum computing stack. Both companies emphasised the need for innovation in both hardware and theory, where advances in algorithms and error-correction may influence the design of new quantum processor geometries, and engineering efforts to improve control systems and housing for quantum chips could accelerate their scaling. Certainly, the size of the mountain ahead of us as an industry was not lost.
2. Many companies agree that quantum networks are necessary to scale quantum computers
At Nu Quantum we believe that reaching quantum computing machines of useful sizes requires using quantum networks to weave multiple processors together into a larger, more powerful quantum distributed computer. It was great to hear other companies echo this vision in their presentations – we even got a shout-out from Peter Knight, who mentioned Nu Quantum when he was speaking about the challenges in climbing the aforementioned mountain!
Reza Nejabati from Cisco underlined how quantum computers will require millions of physical qubits to run fault-tolerant algorithms, whilst quantum processors across different qubit types are expected to reach a limit at thousands of qubits. Quantum networks for distributed computing were also highlighted by Tom Darras from Welinq, a company developing quantum memories.
3. Cross-industry collaboration will play a central role on this quantum climb
Throughout the summit two questions were constantly heard: “What can you do for others? And what can others do for you?”
Conference organisers Jose Pozo and Jon Pugh from Optica asked this question to every speaker as a way of fostering discussion and encouraging collaboration. Jose also pointed to successful collaborations mentioned at previous Optica meetings, including Nu Quantum’s collaboration with CERN to adopt the White Rabbit timing technology, and looked forward to seeing what successful collaborations he can point out next year.
This air of collaboration was palpable throughout the summit. Many participants were eager to chat about possible ways to work together, and how their technologies can compliment each other, from companies like QC Design developing software to assess quantum error correction performance, to integrated circuit foundries such as CORNERSTONE and Light Trace Photonics. Personally I had many great discussions about how to work together, and I hope we can #StayEntangled and keep the lines of communication open going forward.
The trip was also a personal one for Alberto and myself, as both of us did our PhDs at the University of Bristol’s Quantum Engineering and Technology Labs. And while the weather outside was less than ideal, including heavy rain, freezing cold, and even snowfall, it did nothing to affect the warmth we had catching up with old friends and learning new insights.
Where next?
The Optica Quantum Industry Summit will return to Bristol 11th-12th November 2025, and I cannot wait to see what developments are made in the next year! If you cannot wait either, why not say hi to the Nu Quantum team at Q2B Silicon Valley 2024 in Santa Clara, where our CEO Carmen Palacios-Berraquero will be sharing the company’s mission to enable distributed quantum computing using our Entanglement Fabric.
Written by: Alex Moylett
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