PsiQuantum Series D marks important technology achievements

I’m thrilled to congratulate PsiQuantum—the company focused on delivering the world’s first fault tolerant quantum computer with one million physical qubits—on their successful Series D round.

We first invested in PsiQuantum during their Series C fundraise announced in April 2020 and our conviction is steadfast: PsiQuantum has a plausible vision and execution plan to achieve a universal, fault tolerant quantum computer on a realistic time horizon and within sensible cost projections. The advent of a useful number of logical qubits in a fault tolerant quantum processor holds the potential to accelerate important discoveries in materials science and chemistry, opening the door to commercial breakthroughs like much more efficient batteries, improved fertilizers for agriculture, or catalysts for carbon sequestration.

From the outset, PsiQuantum has remained heads-down and focused on their long-term mission to build a commercially viable quantum computer, and the team remains committed to achieving their goal via a disciplined engineering execution plan. They are not reliant on achieving new fundamental scientific breakthroughs to realize this ambition. However, tackling several hard engineering problems is par for the course when the agenda is as ambitious as changing the paradigm of computing! Challenges include designing and implementing quantum system engineering methodologies at an unprecedented level of scale and precision; and advancing the state of the art in performance of silicon photonics manufacturing processes, packaging, and assembly—all while continuing to refine a quantum computer architecture that is ideally suited for photonic qubits.

Since our initial investment, PsiQuantum has delivered steady progress and achieved major milestones on several fronts. Their computer architecture refinements have led to significant physical footprint reduction of the eventual 1M physical qubit machine. Advancements in the architecture have also yielded ongoing improvements in error tolerance to achieve the threshold needed for the fault tolerant operation of logical qubits. They have successfully started fabricating superconducting photodetectors at GlobalFoundries—a major achievement validating the thesis and manufacturing path for a silicon photonics-based quantum computer in commercial semiconductor foundries. The team has completed many tape-outs of both its control electronics and silicon photonics module packages and is making exciting progress on the recipe for a new high speed photonic switch.

The company has continued to build out a strong portfolio of marquee customers across pharmaceuticals, finance, and transportation among many other industries. The PsiQuantum team is executing a thoughtful strategy, priming the ecosystem of interested parties and facilitating necessary prework on algorithmic optimization for hard, domain-specific problems. These customer engagements surface applicable workloads and opportunities for experimentation in their cloud-based simulation environment, which has generated great praise. When PsiQuantum’s commercially viable quantum computer is available, these customers will be in pole position, ready to move to real hardware.

The PsiQuantum founders are world leaders in linear optical quantum computing with a combined 60 years advancing the field in academia prior to starting the company. Jeremy O’Brien (CEO), Terry Rudolph (Chief Architect), Pete Shadbolt (Chief Strategy Officer), and Mark Thompson (Chief Technologist) comprise a strong leadership team. Recent key hires include CRO Josh Richman—an experienced business development and government affairs executive—and COO Fariba Danesh, a leading executive with deep semiconductor experience. The team boasts an impressive bench of talent spanning silicon photonics, quantum architecture, quantum error correction, and semiconductor engineering expertise. 

I’m thrilled to continue my support of PsiQuantum and their mission. We look forward to our ongoing partnership with existing investors Baillie Gifford, Playground Global, Redpoint Ventures, Founders Fund, Quantum1 Group, Atomico, and BlackRock, who is leading the Series D. It’s also an honor to welcome new investors Blackbird Ventures and Temasek—just to name a few. 

With over 70 PhDs on staff, a strong IP portfolio, and a mutual partnership with semiconductor manufacturing leader GlobalFoundries, PsiQuantum is well-positioned to fulfill their ambition: to deliver the world’s first fault tolerant quantum computer with one million physical qubits. Congratulations to Jeremy, Terry, Pete, Mark, and the entire team on this major milestone!