SHEFFIELD, England, Feb. 7, 2024 — Aegiq, a Sheffield-headquartered technology start-up, is one of the winners of a £30 million quantum testbed competition funded by the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), designed to drive innovation in quantum computing and enhance the UK’s capabilities.
Aegiq is among the seven companies delivering different types of quantum computers to be installed at the NQCC facilities. These technologies were chosen to accelerate the growth of the UK’s supply base, increase adoption of quantum computing, and to explore understanding of technology readiness by both private and public sector.
The contract will be used to deliver Artemis, Aegiq’s compact photonic quantum computer and a dedicated user interface for integration with NQCC testbed ecosystem. The Artemis hardware is based on Aegiq’s proprietary integrated photonic chip technology as well as utilizing low-loss silicon nitride platform from QuiX Quantum. Artemis will provide a starting point to tackle problems that cannot be solved by conventional computers, impacting most sectors including energy, finance and defense. It will be built over the next 14 months and installed by Q1 2025 at the NQCC, ready for operation.
“We are very excited to unveil our quantum computing system Artemis and announce the NQCC as a launch customer for it, said Aegiq CEO Maksym Sich. “This marks an important milestone on our technology development roadmap for making practical quantum systems solving real-life problems. Last year, we published our seven-point plan, which focused on the importance of the UK Government being the first customer of quantum technologies. We firmly believe that government-backed capital, as a strategic partner, is the key to turbocharging the UK quantum industry and competing on the global scale. Competitions like this one will stimulate confidence among private customers and encourage investment.”
The £30 million competition has been delivered through Innovate UK under the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) framework. During the project duration, the lead contractors will undertake activities which include R&D, building, testing, and validating their integrated quantum computing testbed solutions for the NQCC.
Co-founded in 2019 by a leadership team consisting of Maksym Sich, Andrii Iamshanov and Scott Dufferwiel, Aegiq has its roots in the technology developed at the Sheffield Quantum Centre, where Scott and Max completed PhDs, as well as in Ukraine, where Max and Andrii are originally from.
The NQCC competition results are part of the £45 million government investment into the quantum technology sector announced this week.
About Aegiq
A spin-out from the University of Sheffield, Aegiq is a quantum computing and networking company on a mission to deliver customer value using quantum & integrated photonic technology. Using hybrid integrated photonics, Aegiq created a platform for scalable and practical quantum applications ranging from photonic quantum computing to quantum network interconnects and quantum cryptographic communications directly compatible with existing infrastructure. Aegiq’s unique approach allows building powerful yet compact and energy-efficient quantum systems, which the company supplements with application specific toolkits.
Source: Aegiq