Pasqal raises $100M to build a neutral atom-based quantum computer

Is the Neutral Atom qubit approach gaining steam?

Hello Everyone,

On the topic of well-funded Quantum computing startups, Pasqal in France really does come to mind. Now the Paris-based quantum computing startup announced that it has raised a €100 million Series B funding round let by Singapore’s Temasek.

Pasqual is building quantum processors out of 2D and 3D arrays of neutral atoms, towards quantum advantage for their customers. Neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers and addressed with laser beams are ideal indistinguishable quantum systems to realize superposition and entanglement, at the heart of powerful Quantum Information Processing.

It is a highly scalable platform, benefiting from tens of years of development which has brought some of contemporary physics'​ most spectacular achievements: Bose-Einstein condensation, cavity quantum electrodynamics, etc...

So among other things, they develop the lasers, the vacuum technology, the electronic controls and the software stack to make the individual atoms accessible to quantum programmers worldwide.

The round was led by new investor Temasek, and includes other news investors the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Wa’ed Ventures and Bpifrance, along with current investors, such as Quantonation, the Defense Innovation Fund, Daphni and Eni Next.

Pasqual founded in early 2019, is yet another neutral (cold) atom Quantum computing startup and that exclusive list like I have covered, is only getting longer. You may recall Russ Fein recently wrote about this.

• Instead of trapped ions (like IonQ) or superconducting quantum computers (like IBM), neutral atom quantum processors use lasers to hold atoms in place with what is essentially an optical tweezer.

• As Russ pointed out: (the 4 Big ones might be: )

• Infleqtion (formerly known as ColdQuanta) completed a $110 million Series B equity round

• Professor Alain Aspect, a co-founder of PASQAL, was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics (now completing its own €100 million equity Series B).

• Atom Computer had a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of its new $100 million facility in Boulder, Colorado

• QuEra’s 256-qubit Aquila QC was made available on Amazon’s Bracket, its cloud-based QC platform

The Euro is still worth more than the U.S. dollar so TechCrunch isn’t technically correct ($ to €).

PASQAL’s technology was built upon the Nobel Prize-winning research of company co-founder Alain Aspect.

The Neutral Atom qubit approach definately seems to have momentum if we look at the most recent funding in the space.

The PR is itself pretty standard:

“We are proud to invest in a startup we’ve been following for years that is working on a very high-impact technology that will solve some of the world’s most pressing computational challenges across industries,” said Nicklas Bergman, EIC Fund advisor. “PASQAL’s innovation in the quantum computing space has made them an industry leader in Europe and globally. We are excited to be a part of their incredible growth and contribute to their lasting impacts.”

This approach to Qubits have been discussed by Third Point Ventures, among others.

The advantage here is that once you can do this with hundreds of atoms at the same time, you can create both a very dense matrix of qubits and one that, using holographic methods, you can reshuffle in 3D space as needed for a given algorithm. And all of this happens at room temperature. - TechCrunch

Europe’s Neutral Atom Leader’s Loft Goals

With the new funding, PASQAL plans to accelerate the company’s research and development efforts to build a 1,000-qubit quantum computer in the short term and fault-tolerant architectures in the long term.

Advantages of Neutral Atom Qubit Approach