Singapore-based quantum software company Horizon Quantum has announced a strategic agreement with IonQ, in which Horizon Quantum will purchase one of IonQ’s 6th-generation, chip-based 256-qubit trapped-ion systems. This will add to Horizon Quantum’s existing superconducting system, and will enable Horizon Quantum to work with a second hardware modality.
According to the announcement, IonQ’s 256-qubit system, which features microwave gate operations and 99.99% gate fidelity, will aid Horizon Quantum in expanding the capabilities of its quantum hardware testbed and will allow the company to operate commercial systems of multiple modalities. This will in turn enable Horizon Quantum to make further progress towards its goal of building the most capable, hardware-agnostic environment for quantum software development. Following the acquisition, Horizon Quantum intends to expand support for trapped-ion systems in its software Triple Alpha, along with enhancing the real-time runtime capabilities within its execution infrastructure. This is expected to enable advanced functionality, including general control flow, dynamic memory allocation, and concurrent classical/quantum function evaluation, and enable developers to go beyond the limits of static circuit execution.
“I could not be more delighted to be working with IonQ to bring trapped ion and world-leading gate fidelities to our testbed,” said Horizon Quantum Founder and CEO Dr Joe Fitzsimons. “Bringing a state-of-the-art system with the capabilities of hundreds of qubits will provide an important and cutting-edge resource to bear in our quest to unlock broad quantum advantage for developers.”
