Quantum computing with atom arrays—bringing Europe to the forefront of the quantum race

Project Information

FRESNEL

Grant agreement ID: 968614

DOI

10.3030/968614

Project closed

EC signature date 1 March 2021

Start date 1 April 2021

End date 31 March 2023

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 3 564 375,00

EU contribution

€ 2 495 062,50

Coordinated by

PASQAL
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FRESNEL (Quantum computing with atom arrays—bringing Europe to the forefront of the quantum race)

Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Classical computers today hit limitations in particular in relation with the slow-down of Moore’s law and with their increasing energy consumption.
On the other hand, the need for high performance computing increases continuously, pulled among others by activities in relation with optimization, energy savings and fighting against climate change.
Quantum Computing is recognized as a mean to bridge this gap, by providing calculation resources which will by far exceed those of classical computers.
Using the fundamentals of Physics Science, Quantum Computers have the potential to revolutionise a broad range of application areas, such as energy, transportation, design of molecules (for chemical, bio-technology, material science of carbon capture applications…), manufacturing and scheduling, artificial intelligence in general…
Besides their huge potential ability to solve problems which are in some cases intractable for classical computers, Quantum Processors comparably operate with a very small energy consumptions (typically less than 10kW) – while the power consumption of High Performance Computing centres is typically in the range of megawatts.
PASQAL builds upon a technology developed for decades now by a research group from Institut d’Optique in Palaiseau (France). Using neutral atoms trapped in a vacuum chamber and manipulated by lasers, this technology presents unique advantages in terms of ability to address a wide range of applicative cases, of scalability and of flexibility and connectivity. It operates at ambient temperature, thus avoiding the use of dedicated high-performance refrigerators needed for many other Quantum Processing technologies and which degrade their reliability and energy consumption.
The technology has now reached a maturity level where it is ready for being industrialized.
The overall objective of the project was therefore to develop and industrialized version of the QPU (Quantum Processing Unit) which will be supplied directly to PASQAL’s clients or made available to them through a cloud platform.
We successfully achieved our objectives: two QPUs, the QaaS development (cloud and full software stack) and the first real world use-case in Financial Services.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

From the beginning of the project, significant progress has been made in the definition, implementation and validation of methods and technologies which will contribute towards increasing further the performance of the Quantum Processing Units developed by Pasqal. This encompasses among others specific laser systems and optimized control modes. Whenever relevant Pasqal’s emulator is used to assess the benefit expected from technical evolutions.
The design of an industrial version of the system has been completed on the mechanical, optical and electronic axes, and the QPU software is upgraded to support evolutions. Integration has been achieved with a strong emphasis on robustness, performance, scalability and ability to be integrated in HPC-type environments.
A cloud platform and full software stack have been developed with the objective of bringing them to production for first access by customers in a very short term.
The software stack supports both analogue and digital (gates) operating modes; it encompasses middleware and higher-level applicative modules suitable to address the needs of the largest number of end-users.
The first use case in financial services with real world data has been successfully done with results that pave the way for Quantum Computing advantage over classical computers in the near future

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The development of optimal control techniques and the design of an industrialized version of the QPU represent significant progress compared with current state of the art.
As a matter of fact until now mainly laboratory-grade setups have been developed and set to work, with inherent limitations on robustness and stability which impair potential use by industrial end-users.
The progress made by Pasqal in these key areas, together with the potential of the neutral atom technology and with its ability to address real-world use cases (cf. Credit Agricole CIB publication) especially using the analogue mode, pave the way to a rapid adoption of quantum computing and its application to actual industrial resource-intensive problems.
This will allow to make the technology available to first adopters which will get tangible benefits in areas such as financial services, energy, chemical and environment, where the impact will be significant.

Fresnel - Pulser Interface

Fresnel pre-industrial prototype - view of the optical bench

Fresnel pre-industrial prototype

Fresnel pre-industrial prototype

Fresnel - POC study

Fresnel pre-industrial prototype - view of the optical bench

Fresnel pre-industrial prototype

Fresnel pre-industrial prototype - view of the vacuum chamber

Fresnel - Pulser Interface1