Nineteen European companies and research institutes have joined hands to develop quantum processors in silicon. The Quantum Large-Scale Integration with Silicon (QLSI) consortium, the latest addition to the EU’s 1 billion euro Quantum Flagship program, aims to demonstrate that spin qubits in silicon are the best platform for scaling quantum bits to very high numbers.
One of QLSI’s participants, Qutech, has already made a 2-qubit quantum chip. In fact, the Delft-based research institute even offers access to it through its Quantum Inspire open-access quantum cloud. QLSI initially focuses on taking this principle to the next level with the demonstration of a 16-qubit chip. The consortium will also make an 8-qubit chip available for external use through Quantum Inspire.
“Europe is well-positioned to take the EU’s spin-qubit R&D to the next level, in what is a high-stakes competition among advanced technological countries,” said Maud Vinet, CEA-Leti’s quantum hardware program manager, who will coordinate the four-year, 15 million euro project. Apart from Qutech, two more organizations from the Benelux participate in QLSI: the University of Twente and Imec.