Quantum Brilliance co-founder Marcus Doherty is installing what may be the world’s first quantum computers that run at room temperature, eliminating the need for operation at close to absolute zero. Cryogenic freedom enables quantum computing at the edge.
Doherty told EE Times in an exclusive interview that the diamond-based qubits he has developed over the past 20 years are gaining adoption in quantum-computing devices at government-run organizations, such as Oak Ridge National Laboratories in the U.S. and Cyberagentur, a cybersecurity agency in Germany.
Quantum Brilliance’s focus on room-temperature operation allows the company to pursue quantum computing on the edge and in hybrid configurations with QPUs, GPUs, and CPUs all operating in the same box, unlike other quantum devices that need isolated, super-cold environments to work, Doherty said.
“What attracted Oak Ridge to us was that a lot of other quantum computing technologies are limited to a vision where you have 10 quantum computers which sit over there, and then you have your classical high-performance computer over there, and that is then your constraint around how you can use that compute system as defined by that physical architecture,” he said. “What we offer is a very different vision, which is that every compute node in an HPC (high performance computing) center today could have a QPU as well as its GPUs. It’s a very different architectural choice, which leads to very different outcomes.”
Qubits need temperatures near absolute zero to prevent thermal noise and environmental interference, which cause the devices to lose their quantum properties, a phenomenon known as decoherence, leading to errors.
Quantum at the edge
Quantum Brilliance is developing systems for edge quantum computing.
“What we are doing with the German cybersecurity agency allows you to deploy quantum devices. We have a contract with the German cybersecurity agency to essentially deliver a mobile quantum computer the size of a GPU rack in 2028,” Doherty said, describing other possible quantum edge devices.
“You can imagine our devices in medical imaging suites performing machine learning-based feature detection in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or CT (computed tomography). Or on vehicles, being able to enhance collision avoidance and feature detection, or in satellites where they are trying to process earth observation data.”
Quantum Brilliance
Source: Quantum Brilliance
The company is working with defense giant Lockheed Martin on aperture radar to identify ships, Doherty added. Aperture radar is a remote-sensing technique that uses a small antenna on a moving platform, such as a satellite, to process various radar echoes into high-resolution images.
Oak Ridge project
Early in September, Oak Ridge announced its first operational quantum computer in its Tennessee data center, made by Quantum Brilliance. Oak Ridge will use the system to explore how parallelized QPUs can enhance high-performance computing, much like GPUs have done for classical workloads.
ORNL’s first on-site, commercial quantum computer cluster will be used by OLCF staff to explore ways to integrate this emerging technology into classical high-performance computing ecosystems. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
“By hosting a Quantum Brilliance system on site, we’ll be maturing the real mechanics of hybrid computing — co-scheduling, end-to-end performance tuning, data and workflow orchestration, workforce development and more — so we can eventually move HPC-quantum integration from a conceptual pilot to a fully embedded capability,” said Oak Ridge Program Director Ashley Barker in a prepared statement. “Leveraging the potential power of quantum computing in a hybrid ecosystem is important to the nation and aligns with Oak Ridge’s mission of boosting innovation, energy, competitiveness, and national security.”
The U.S. laboratory is also working with quantum computing company Ionq.
In December 2024, Ionq and Oak Ridge announced the development of a new hybrid quantum algorithm based on the Quantum Imaginary Time Evolution (QITE) principle. The noise-tolerant method aids in solving optimization problems.
Diamond tech
Quantum Brilliance qubits are built around a nitrogen vacancy center in a diamond lattice.
One carbon atom is removed from the lattice and replaced with a nitrogen atom. An adjacent atom is removed to create a vacancy.
“Electrons orbit that nitrogen vacancy like an atom, and so you have this atomic-like structure to this defect that you can then observe and manipulate just like a neutral atom or a trapped ion in a quantum computer,” Doherty said.
The key difference is fixed in the lattice of a diamond forever, Doherty added.
At room temperature and pressure, the Quantum Brilliance qubits have extremely long coherence times.
“For diamond, that’s greater than a millisecond, which is at least a thousand times longer than superconducting qubits and is close to but not quite as long as trapped-ion and neutral-atom quantum computers,” Doherty said. “In addition to having this exquisite coherence time, you can interact with these nitrogen vacancy centers relatively simply. You can use light to initialize them, and you use microwaves and radio waves to manipulate them.
Unlike neutral atoms and trapped-ion quantum computers, your light doesn’t need to be precise, super-high precision, narrow lasers, because it’s really microwaves and radio waves, which are where you need that precision, rather than light.”
Australian origin
The company, founded in 2019, has approximately 100 employees, with half based in Australia and the other half in Europe. The startup has made its first quantum devices in Australia.
“We’ve got different parts we’ve packaged and assembled together,” Doherty said. “We haven’t got a genuine integrated device. That’s in research and development in Germany at the moment. In the not too distant future, we’re looking to move into pilot production.”
In Germany, Quantum Brilliance works with the Fraunhofer Institute, one of the world’s leading organizations for applied research, on the engineering of qubits and materials. The Australian company has also partnered with the European R&D consortium imec for the development of electronics on diamond.
“We are now part of a broader consortium across Europe which is establishing a pilot line for diamond quantum technology,” Doherty said. “That consortium has a variety of partners, both research institutes as well as semiconductor players, as well as corporations, producers of devices. We are evolving that pilot line consortium.”
Doherty noted that Australia invested in quantum research very early, over the last 20 years, producing a great deal of talent.
“Australia’s having a bit of trouble translating research into industry outcomes, whereas other nations are doing a better job of that,” Doherty added. “Europe is doing a really good job of pushing from research into industry. We’re finding a lot of acceleration and support in Germany.”