Photonic Inc: Creating relevant, scalable, and distributed quantum computing

Quantum technologies are an exciting prospect for our future and naturally interdisciplinary in solving complex questions. Dr Stephanie Simmons, Founder and Chief Quantum Officer at Photonic, is at the forefront of driving the technical vision for next-generation quantum technologies. Photonic is a leader in distributed quantum computing in silicon and designs and manufactures large-scale, distributed, and fault-tolerant quantum computers – transforming material discovery, computational chemistry, drug development, and secure communications.

Dr Stephanie Simmons is the Founder and Chief Quantum Officer at Photonic, driving the technical vision for next-generation quantum technologies based on photonically linked silicon spin qubits. She is a world-leading expert on quantum technologies and co-chair of the Advisory Council on Canada’s National Quantum Strategy.

In this interview, Research Outreach finds out about Photonic and Simmons’ vision for the development of quantum technologies, interdisciplinary working, and its potential applications worldwide.

Can you tell us what inspired you to found Photonic and your vision for next-generation quantum technologies?

At 16, I discovered quantum technologies in a newspaper article about the Institute for Quantum Computing in Ontario, Canada. The technology immediately captivated me and I’ve dedicated my career to it since.

I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Waterloo in mathematics and mathematical physics, my doctorate in materials science at Oxford University, and then went to the University of New South Wales as an electrical engineering research fellow in silicon-based quantum computing. From there, I returned to Canada to initiate the Silicon Quantum Technology lab at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

In my academic work, I began researching approaches I thought would be needed to create reliable quantum computing. Reliable quantum computers will require large numbers of highly connected qubits; it became clear to me that it was not feasible for those qubits to be constrained to a single box. Modularity, or a distributed approach, is critical to reach the scale required to solve the most massive computational challenges. The industry is not there yet, but we’re moving that way quickly!

While in my research phase, I came to realise that we would need to take the deep academic work occurring in this space to the commercial realm. Every time we commercialise a branch of physics, the impact goes significantly beyond what early scientists and researchers can even contemplate.

So, I started Photonic with the goal of developing commercially relevant applications. At Photonic, we’re building quantum computers using the T centre in silicon (its radiation damage centre) to unlock a distributed quantum computing architecture. Where classical computers use bits to compute, quantum computers use ‘quantum bits’ or ‘qubits’. There are lots of different approaches to creating and using qubits; Photonic’s qubits have properties that allow them to both compute and communicate in ways that offer benefits for networking and scalability of quantum computers. We are leveraging the memory and computing capabilities of spins and the connectivity of photonics to build the world’s first scalable, fault-tolerant networked quantum computer.

As a world-leading expert in quantum technologies, you were invited to speak at the World Economic Forum. Can you share some insights from those discussions and how they have influenced your work at Photonic?

From my conversations at the World Economic Forum events, I can say that there is a rising interest and belief in quantum technologies and their potential to be commercially viable sooner than expected – years, not decades, away. Although specifics and definitions may vary, there is starting to be a consensus that the development of quantum technology toward viable commercial applications will progress through three distinct areas of focus or phases.

Noisy intermediate-scale quantum: In this foundational phase, the prototypes that emerged were restricted to a single module and contained qubits that were too few or too noisy (unreliable) to implement quantum error correction effectively.

Small-Scale Logical Qubits: In this phase, the introduction of error correction and resultant fault tolerance has brought us to our current state, with increases in the number and reliability of logical qubits within a single computing module.

Large-Scale Logical Qubits: Complex quantum computations that require many logical qubits will be possible as systems will have efficient means of using large numbers of identical, manufacturable, and high-quality logical qubits.

Many organisations are already preparing for this quantum future, either by building in-house teams, forming partnerships, or researching how their industries will be affected by quantum technologies.

At Photonic, we’re focusing on building the large-scale systems, capable of commercially relevant, fault tolerant, distributed quantum computing at scale.

As the co-chair of the Advisory Council on Canada’s National Quantum Strategy, what are the key objectives of this strategy, and how do you see it positioning Canada in the global quantum technology landscape?

Canada’s National Quantum Strategy has three primary missions to benefit Canadian citizens, industry, and governments:

Make Canada a world leader in the development, deployment, and use of quantum computing hardware and software.

Ensure the privacy and cybersecurity of Canadians in a quantum-enabled world through a national secure quantum communications network and a post-quantum cryptography initiative.

Enable the Government of Canada and key industries to be developers and early adopters of new quantum-sensing technologies.

These missions are supported by the pillars of research, talent, and commercialisation. The goal is to continue to support advancements in the research and development of quantum innovations, to train those people who will make up the quantum workforce, and to further the adoption of ‘Canadian-made’ quantum technologies by our government, key industries, and not-for-profit entities.

Canada invested early in its quantum research and development sector, which has been growing organically for decades. As a result, Canada is well positioned in the training it has provided to those in the quantum sector. What comes next will impact every Canadian. The National Quantum Strategy is set up to help navigate the transition to a post-quantum world in a way that will maximise shared opportunity and minimise disruption. It also provides a foundation to work with other countries who have shared goals in this endeavour.

As a nation, we have the chance to capitalise on the quantum opportunity and maintain a leadership role, but we need to act now to support the existing quantum ecosystem and to grow it. We can do this by supporting commercialisation of quantum in Canada. We have several quantum companies who are recruiting scientists and experts in the field, with compensation and roles that are globally compelling. We need to be able to support firms like these as they continue to explode in scale and numbers, so they can attract in-demand talent. We need to continue to see growth in our domestic industry if we want to stay at the forefront of this exciting new era of quantum technologies. We also need to be cognizant of the role of export controls and how those may affect both innovation and commercialisation.

Your research focuses on luminescent defects in silicon and their applications in quantum computing. Could you explain some of the most significant breakthroughs your team has achieved in this area?

Photonic has made advances in the understanding, technology, and practice of quantum computing with the characterisation and development of the company’s unique qubit architecture. A paper in Nature introduced ‘T centre’ photon–spin qubits in silicon photonic structures. This work integrated individually addressable T centre photon–spin qubits in silicon photonic structures and characterised their spin-dependent telecommunications-band optical transitions. These results unlocked immediate opportunities to construct silicon-integrated, telecommunications-band quantum information networks.

Photonic introduced a unique architecture that positioned the company to unlock distributed, fault-tolerant quantum technologies. The approach leverages spin-photon interfaces in silicon, silicon-integrated photonics, and quantum optics, allowing for distributed quantum computing where networks of individual quantum computers are efficiently connected via telecom fibres.

We are also the first to distribute entanglement and perform distributed quantum computation between two separate modules in a commercial setting, marking a significant milestone toward scalable quantum computing and networking. Specifically, this demonstrated the ability to distribute entanglement between two modules and consume it to perform a teleported gate sequence, establishing a credible proof-of-concept for T centres as a distributed quantum computing and networking platform.

What are the primary technical challenges you face in developing quantum technologies, and how is Photonic addressing these challenges?

One of the challenges we’re dedicated to solving is building systems with enough capacity to run the types of algorithms that are required to solve the big problems that are intractable for classical computers. To do this, we believe that entanglement distribution and modularity is the key. Being able to effectively distribute entanglement within a single ‘box’ and between ‘boxes’ allows us to create quantum networks. We’ve been focused since day one on creating a system that distributes entanglement with minimal loss – it is designed to network.

As with any emerging technology, we’re also focused on continuous engineering improvements on components, hardware, and software. We’re taking physics and transitioning theoretical possibilities into actual components and processes, where the materials, connections, fabrication, and implementation processes also need to work. Quantum is complicated, detailed, and hard, but also satisfying, innovative, and groundbreaking, which is why we love it!

Quantum computing is highly interdisciplinary. How do you foster collaboration across different scientific and engineering fields within Photonic and your broader research efforts?

We have a great team who are universally curious, experts in their respective fields, and want to make an impact. Internally, we have teams for software and hardware engineering, quantum processing, photonics, operations, as well as the commercialisation aspects. We are distributed across the country and the globe, yet we function well as a team. We also work with various suppliers, manufacturing partners, and scientific collaborators as a daily part of our business.

Our company values are Fearless Ambition, Accountability, Growth, and Respect, and everyone at Photonic embodies those values in the work they do. We have made incredible progress because we invest in each other and are all inherently invested in the same goal of creating scalable and usable quantum systems that will change the world.

Quantum computing holds potential to transform various industries, such as material discovery, computational chemistry, and drug development. Could you provide examples of how your work at Photonic is making an impact in these areas?

Materials science stands out as a prime area for utilising large-scale quantum processors since they enable chemistry simulations and design simulations that are beyond classical computing’s reach. Quantum calculations are essential for accurately modelling certain chemical interactions, which classical systems cannot manage practically. Advancing the frontier by using quantum calculations will provide powerful new tools for chemistry and materials sciences, opening up innovative design possibilities and approaches to problem-solving.

Large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers are not available at present – so the first example of how we hope to make an impact is to make these systems available! Until then, the exact nature of their future real-world applications remains uncertain. However, we have some informed predictions about where they may begin to make an impact. Quantum computers are expected to excel in computing molecular properties, which is an essential aspect in material design – an area that requires exploring a vast array of molecular possibilities. It’s likely that a hybrid approach combining quantum and classical systems would be employed, with classical computers generating potential materials and quantum computers accurately assessing them to identify the most promising options from the classical computer’s output.

For those eager to get a better understanding of what is involved in the development of quantum computing algorithms, various quantum development kits are already available. These allow users to write and test code, simulate early quantum hardware platforms, and perform quantum resource estimation. The Azure Quantum Development Kit by Microsoft is one such tool.

As a recipient of numerous awards and honours, what advice do you have for young scientists and engineers aspiring to make significant contributions to quantum?

Quantum is going to have an extraordinary impact on society, and the industry is so ‘new’ that everyone can make big impacts at this stage. Everything is novel, everything is still fast paced, especially relative to academia. The quantum environment is high octane; it’s a lot of fun building something new, and if you’re someone who is driven by purpose, it can’t get better than this.

There are so many ways to contribute to the development of quantum technologies; it isn’t just a PhD in quantum physics. We have hardware and software engineers, operations experts, project managers, photonics leaders – so many people who are contributing to the advancement of quantum technologies.

This is being invented in real time, so like many other deep or emerging technologies, you don’t need to know everything coming into it. Parts of it may be unknown to you and you’ll have the chance to learn it. A lot of the skills you have that are not ‘quantum specific’ may be transferrable. As well, we’re seeing the emergence of organisations like the Quantum Algorithms Institute that is offering courses for those who are quantum adjacent. If you’re curious, quantum is a great area.

What role do you see Photonic playing in the future of quantum?

As a space, quantum is coming into its own. There are so many people engaged and excited about it because they can really see the potential.

While we don’t have a ‘dominant design’ in quantum computing yet, I predict we will soon. If we examine almost all technological revolutions, we have a strong sense of the pattern of what’s coming. There’s a tipping point where the dominant design will emerge. In response to the tipping point, there will be a focus of energy across the entire industry, essentially converging around a dominant design, which then becomes the de facto standard.

At Photonic, we are firmly rooted in building a distributed architecture for quantum computing. We’re convinced it will become the dominant design that truly unlocks the potential of quantum. It will revolutionise the way we do so many things and make inroads on these tough, and currently intractable, problems.

We’re delivering the architecture that will get us to commercially relevant, scalable, distributed quantum computing. The ability to scale will increase the speed and utility at which quantum can be implemented, and then we can start to solve some of these great problems that hold such potential for us to make progress towards drug discovery, sustainability, enhanced security – the future is exciting, and we’re going to make it happen.