The University of Cambridge and US company IonQ have opened the IonQ Quantum Innovation Centre, housed in the Ray Dolby Centre, the new home of the historic Cavendish Laboratory. It is the university’s largest corporate research partnership and IonQ’s first centre of this kind at a university.
The centre starts with nine projects bringing together Cambridge scientists and company specialists. Some aim to improve quantum hardware, for example with microscopic mirrors to collect light from trapped ions more efficiently; others will test quantum algorithms in chemistry, materials science, finance, engineering and medicine, including the search for new targets for cancer therapies.
IonQ will install a 256-qubit Superion quantum computer and an on-campus quantum network at the university, with two data centres and three network nodes. The partnership also includes strengthening the quantum link between Cambridge and Bristol.
Through the UK agency Innovate UK, there will also be access and computing time for the National Quantum Computing Centre over three years. The partnership will fund new academic posts, researchers and PhD students.
