With $30 million in new funding, SEEQC thinks the chips are key to building useful quantum computing

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have said that “very useful quantum computers” are probably still around 20 years awaybut his company is also covering its bets beyond the classic chips with investments and partners in that proper space.

Now one of the companies that Nvidia is partnering with in quantum development is announcing funding. SEEQCa quantum computing startup, has raised $30 million in funding co-led by Booz Allen Ventures and Japanese-European VC firm NordicNinja, with participation from new backer SIP Capital and some existing investors. “It’s a combination of financial, geographic and strategic strengthening,” SEEQC CEO John Levy said of the Series A extension.

SEEQC is part of an emerging category of startups looking at how to better leverage classical computing to run quantum processors. This will be essential to manage large numbers of qubits, the fundamental unit of quantum computing, while making the hardware compatible with data centers and enterprise needs.

SEEQC – whose name is an acronym for “scalable, energy efficient quantum computing”, and pronounced “seek” – believes that the key to reducing the complexity of today’s quantum hardware is to have chips that can power all the functions core of a quantum computer. . For example, this allows controlling many qubits with a single cable, as SEEQC believes is very necessary.

There’s no denying that current prototypes often look bulky, just like regular computers did in the early days of IT. Levy thought that Google’s announcement on the error correction capabilities of his quantum chip Willow was “fantastic” – but he still couldn’t help noticing the amount of cables involved.

“We need to see those (types of ads), but we also need to see from a systems engineering perspective, the ability to troubleshoot cabling, speed, latency, cost, etc. the kinds of things you need to be able to do to build large-scale systems. And unless we do that, we can’t really scale enterprise data centers,” Levy said.

The rapid advancement of AI has already underlined the critical need for more energy-efficient data centers, which quantum could make a reality, while simultaneously unlocking new applications, such as accelerating the development of new materials and new drugs.

This explains why German chemical company BASF recently joined the UK-led and supported SEEQC QuPharma Project to explore how quantum computing can accelerate the drug discovery process, in partnership with Merck. “These companies know how much will be central to their business,” Levy said.

This also explains why Merck’s corporate venture capital arm, M Ventures, invested in SEEQC in 2020followed by other investors including EQT Ventures and LG Technology Ventures which eventually brought the support of SEEQC to a total of $22.4 million before this last time.

This is alongside SEEQC partnership with Nvidia. Announced in 2023, the collaboration aims to build an “all-digital, ultra-low-latency chip-to-chip link between quantum computers and GPUs”, which – when created – would be compatible with all technologies of the quantum computing.

The new funding will help the startup accelerate the commercial rollout of its chips and improve its capabilities. But SEEQC is already more advanced than you might expect from a startup created in 2019, largely because it’s a spinout of a chip company. Hyperswhich was established by former employees of IBM’s superconducting electronics division.

“We actually started with a mature technology, our own chip foundry – we operate a very specialized chip foundry for the types of chips we build – IP, and a core team of people who had built entire superconducting systems, primarily through the US government users,” Levy said.

Since then, the company has tripled the size of its team, which is partly based in London, UK and ​​in Naples, Italy, where an early pre-spinout version of its chip was built ; but mostly in Elmsford, NY, where he now plans to expand his chip foundry.

Quantum promises aside, this also resonates with the growing demand for a supply chain that is resistant to geopolitical tensions, especially those involving China.

Different companies attack this problem from different angles, such as photonics, silicon based chips and qubits of trapped ions. Which approach will prevail remains to be seen, but Levy is convinced that it is key to think beyond qubits. “We need to have an overall system architecture that can really get us to where we need to go, and chips are going to be at the very center of that.”