VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 3, 2025 — Photonic Inc., a leader in distributed quantum computing, is pleased to announce its selection for Stage A of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI). In this effort, Photonic intends to demonstrate to DARPA that its large-scale quantum computing approach will reach industrial scale.
Open to organizations around the world, QBI seeks to cut through the “hype” by evaluating approaches to utility scale quantum computing. Specifically, QBI is designed to rigorously verify and validate whether any quantum computing approach can achieve utility-scale operation — meaning its computational value exceeds its cost — by the year 2033. Stage A of the QBI process involves describing a utility-scale quantum computer concept with a plausible path to realization in the near term.
“We are proud to be selected for Stage A of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative,” said Dr. Stephanie Simmons, Founder and Chief Quantum Officer at Photonic Inc. “When DARPA announced QBI last year, we were pleased to see that their definition of “utility scale” includes not only the computational value, but also the costs. We know that maintainability, serviceability, reliability, manufacturability – in addition to the obvious scale required to unlock the promise of quantum – are critical. Photonic’s Entanglement First™ architecture provides a scalable solution for distributed quantum computing. We look forward to delving deeper into our architecture with the QBI test and evaluation team in the months to come.”
“Realizing the full potential of quantum at scale will require our collective genius. We were pleased to learn that Photonic was selected for DARPA’s QBI Stage A, a rigorous recognition cementing Photonic’s unique, entanglement-first approach to distributed quantum computing,” said Krysta Svore, Technical Fellow, Advanced Quantum Development, Microsoft.
In addition to funding program participants, QBI will add value to their ongoing research and development efforts by providing unbiased third-party verification and validation of an organization’s path to a utility-scale quantum computer. The program has three stages:
1.Stage A: Description of a utility-scale quantum computer concept that has a plausible path to realization in the near term.
2. Stage B: Description of a Research and Development Plan capable of realizing the utility-scale quantum computer, the risks associated with that plan and the planned risk mitigation steps, and the prototypes needed to burn down these risks.
3. Stage C: Working with the Government to Verify and Validate that the utility-scale quantum computer concept can be constructed as designed and operated as intended.
