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PhotonicEst. 2016Palo Alto, California

PsiQuantum

PsiQuantum

“Skip the middle. Go straight to a million qubits.”

Skipping the demos and going straight for a million-qubit photonic machine — built on silicon in a real semiconductor fab.

One Million Qubits or Bust

PsiQuantum skipped small demos entirely — its first shipped machine is designed to be fault-tolerant.

Led by Jeremy O'Brien (CEO)
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The Story

Timeline.

2016

Founded by physicists from Bristol, Stanford and Yale with the audacious plan to skip demos entirely.

2020

Announces $215M Series C to build silicon photonic quantum chips in a commercial fab.

2021

Partners with GlobalFoundries — chips are manufactured on standard 300mm silicon wafers.

2024

Announces the world's first utility-scale photonic quantum computer sites in Brisbane and Chicago.

What makes them different

Key Facts

  • Uses single photons — particles of light — as qubits.
  • Chips are cooled to just 4 Kelvin, far warmer than superconducting rivals.
  • Every chip is manufactured on a standard silicon photonics line.
  • Bets that only a million-qubit fault-tolerant machine is commercially useful.

Real-world pilots

Quantum Uses Today

  • R&D pilots with the Australian and U.S. governments.
  • Photonic chip manufacturing at scale in existing fabs.

If they succeed

Potential Applications

  • The first commercial fault-tolerant quantum computer.
  • Materials discovery for green hydrogen catalysts.
  • Cryptography, chemistry and financial simulation at scale.
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