#QuEraComputing

[govindhtech]

QuEra Quantum Computing with Neutral-Atom Architecture

Quantum Computing Era

QuEra Quantum System Computes using Neutral Atoms

As the era of practical quantum computing approaches, industry interest is shifting from “if” to “when” such powerful systems will be widely deployed. After five to ten years of quantum technology developments, Yuval Boger, Chief Commercial Officer of QuEra Computing, says building a quantum computer is inevitable and the timeline for real-world applications is shorter.

“There are moments when it’s difficult to appreciate all of the incredible advancements that have been made,” Boger told The Next Platform. Five to 10 years ago, the question arose: "Could you build a quantum computer?" It should be evident. People believe you can build a quantum computer.

Overdevelopment and Investment

Recent high-profile IT company announcements reinforce this. Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft have introduced quantum chips with critical error correction features. Microsoft boldly claimed that its Majorana 1 quantum processor will enable reliable, fault-tolerant quantum computers in years rather than decades.

IBM revealed its fault-tolerant Quantum Starling system by 2029 in late May after consecutive Nighthawk processor releases from 2025 to 2028. Quantum circuits with 100 million quantum gates on 200 logical qubits are planned for this system. Besides delivering its annealing Advantage quantum devices through its Leap cloud platform, D-Wave debuted its first on-premises computer and revealed an ambitious ambition in March 2025.

Accelerated innovation draws investment. In 2025's first quarter, quantum technology spending tripled from the year before. IT giants like Nvidia are aggressively entering the quantum industry with QuEra, Quantinuum, and Quantum Machines in their Boston quantum research lab.

QuEra, which received $47 million in October 2024 and $230 million in February 2025 with Google and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, has benefited. This money will help it create fault-tolerant technology, hire more scientists and engineers, and deepen partnerships with government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and research institutes.

Quantum System Travel

The installation of QuEra's first quantum systems outside its labs were significant. Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) acquired the gate-based neutral-atom Gemini quantum computer late last month. Under a $41 million contract awarded a year earlier, Japan's new G-QuAT quantum-AI research centre received the machine to run alongside the Nvidia-powered ABCI-Q supercomputer. A gate-based neutral-atom quantum system from QuEra was also delivered to the National Quantum Computing Centre at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, England.

These deployments emphasise the hybrid classical-quantum operational paradigm. Boger suggests that quantum computers will complement CPUs and GPUs rather than replace them. “There is a widespread misperception that quantum computers will simply replace or displace conventional CPUs or GPUs,” Boger said. Do not believe that. One more processor unit will be added to the datacenter. Some things work well for GPUs and QPUs, others for CPUs.

Using Neutral Atom Modality

QuEra's neutral-atom technology provides benefits over superconducting or trapped-ion qubits. Precision laser beams hold neutral atoms in a vacuum for interference-free ‘optical tweezers’. QuEra's 19-inch rack-mounted devices use 20 kilowatts of electricity at ambient temperature instead of cryogenic cooling.

Boker praises atoms' purity and scalability, calling them abundant and perfect. Their identicality makes them excellent. No manufacturing faults, even with a million atoms. Because atoms are only a few microns, large-scale qubit arrays can be constructed with only four microns between them. Boger says intrinsic scalability is becoming an engineering problem, not a science.

Concept to Practice: Next Steps

This shows how theory applies to practice. In 2023, Harvard, QuEra, MIT, NIST, and the University of Maryland demonstrated qubit failure detection and repair. Next, constructing quantum systems with enough usable qubits is being solved.

Boger believes quantum computers will be “truly useful” for solving business problems with monetary value in two or three years. First uses are expected in material science, chemistry, and medicine. Rapid industrial investment, which exceeded $1.25 billion in the first quarter of 2025, supports this commonly held belief. Boger says the large sums and respectable companies signal potential. Value public firms in quantum using Amazon, IBM, Google, and Microsoft.

Since 2022, QuEra's 256-qubit Aquila quantum technology has been available on AWS for 130 hours per week using programmable arrays of neutral Rubidium atoms. Aquila is analogue, while Gemini is digital; its recent installation in Japan signals a generational change. Boger compares this to CDs and vinyl for audio, which have the same objective but different recording and playback methods. Future QuEra systems will have more qubits, lower error rates, better logical qubits, higher external connectivity, and better interfaces with regular CPUs and GPUs, backed by enhanced software infrastructure.

The path to mainstream quantum usefulness is clearer as companies like QuEra build solutions that integrate into present computing infrastructures to solve previously unsolvable problems.

[govindhtech]

Simulation Of String Breaking Built With Quantum Computing

Scientists improved particle physics simulation by utilising quantum computers to simulate and watch “string breaking” in real time. Traditional computers couldn't replicate this complicated process, in which subatomic particles like quarks are joined by "strings" of force fields that release energy when they break.

The groundbreaking findings are the latest step towards using quantum computers for simulations that surpass conventional machines. These quantum simulations are “incredibly encouraging,” says LBNL scientist Christian Bauer. He said “string breaking is a very important process that is not yet fully understood from first principles”. Classical computers can calculate the ultimate effects of particle collisions involving string generation or breaking, but not the intermediate dynamics.

Two Simulation Methods Revealed

Two worldwide academic-business research teams conducted the experiments. Two teams worked at theGoogle Quantum AI Lab in Santa Barbara, California, and Cambridge startup QuEra Computing. These groups discovered string breaking employing “diametrically opposite quantum-simulation philosophies”:

Analogue Quantum Simulation (QuEra Computing):

This team included Harvard, Innsbruck, and QuEra Computing researchers using QuEra's Aquila computer.

The data was encoded in rubidium atoms kept in place by optical “tweezers” in a 2D honeycomb or kagome-geometry pattern.

The electric field at a given position in space was reflected by each atom's qubit, which could be stimulated or relaxed.

This analogue quantum simulation relied on arranging the atoms so that their electrostatic forces mimicked the electric field. This arrangement allowed the system to continuously attain lower energy levels.

This technology allowed the first observation of string breaking in a programmable two-dimensional quantum simulator. The “tabletop analogue of quark confinement,” a key property of QCD, was achieved.

◦ Daniel González-Cuadra, co-author of the QuEra paper and theoretical physicist and assistant professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (IFT) in Madrid, said neutral-atom devices can now solve theoretical difficulties. He said “seeing string breaking in a controlled 2D environment marks a critical step towards using quantum simulators to explore high-energy physics”.

Alexei Bylinskii, QuEra's VP of Quantum Computing Services, said this alliance “underscores the value of open, programmable neutral-atom hardware for fundamental research.” Research in condensed-matter, high-energy, and quantum-information science is enhanced by flexible access to Aquila's multi-qubit capabilities.

Professor Peter Zoller, a senior author at IQOQI and the University of Innsbruck and “founding father of modern quantum simulation,” said “Gauge theories govern much of modern physics.” By showing non-abelian gauge fields and topological matter in two dimensions where strings can bend and fluctuate, the basis is established for studying them.

The experiment featured dynamic quenches using local detuning ‘kicks’ to watch strings snap and re-form in real time, revealing resonance peaks signalling many-body tunnelling processes; programmable geometry, where atoms were placed on hexagonal lattice links to enforce Gauss's-law constraints via Rydberg blockade; and tuneable string tension by varying laser detuning and interaction radius. This work stretched one-dimensional demonstrations to two spatial dimensions, when theoretical and numerical techniques near saturation.

Google Quantum AI Lab (Digital Quantum Simulation) utilised the Sycamore processor.

The chip's superconducting loop states encoded the 2D quantum field, unlike the analogue method.

This “digital” quantum simulator delicately controls the quantum field's evolution “by hand” using discrete manipulations.

Frank Pollmann, a physicist from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Garching, Germany, who led the Google experiment, said both teams placed strings in the field that “effectively acted like rubber bands connecting two particles.” Researchers adjusted settings to make strings stiff, wobbly, or breakable. Pollmann sometimes said, “The whole string just dissolves: the particles become deconfined.”

Importance and Future

These experiments are necessary to employ quantum computers for simulations beyond regular machines. The results demonstrate the scalability of neutral-atom platforms like Aquila for simulating complex quantum field theories and set a benchmark for quantum simulation by pushing classical computational capabilities in real-time gauge-theory dynamics. This confirms the growing importance of quantum hardware for scientific study.

Simulating strings in a 2D electric field can be useful in material physics, but high-energy interactions like those in particle colliders, which require the stronger nuclear force, are difficult to replicate. Monika Aidelsburger, a physicist at Munich's Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, says these more complex simulations have “no clear path at this point how to get there”.

She added that quantum simulation has advanced “really amazing and very fast” overall. Because ‘qudits’ quantum systems with more than two quantum states may produce more accurate representations of a quantum field and enhance simulation power, researchers are considering using them. Christian Bauer and LBNL colleague Anthony Ciavarella were among the first to model the strong nuclear force with a quantum computer last year.

This research will boost particle physics and demonstrate quantum computing's scientific discovery potential.

Financial Support and Recognition

US National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, EU Quantum Flagship programme, Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and business partners funded the research. Aquila hardware time from QuEra Computing.