Alice & Bob to build Paris lab for quantum computing

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -French tech startup Alice & Bob said it was building a $50 million quantum computing laboratory in Paris to support the development of its products.

The new lab will enable Alice & Bob’s next-generation quantum chip series - Lithium, Beryllium and Graphene. This development hub will be funded by the company’s recent $103 million private funding round.

Alice & Bob was founded in 2020 and specialises in quantum computing.

It said its goal is the "creation of more powerful quantum computers at a fraction of the footprint, hardware and energy resources needed for competing quantum computing players".

The new laboratory, it added, will allow the company to turn its quantum chips, powered by proprietary cat qubit technology, into market-ready products.

"As our company’s focus is shifting from pure research to commercialisation, our lab will enable Alice & Bob to create technology that can be tested by actual clients and end users," said CEO Théau Peronnin.

Alice & Bob said Israel's Quantum Machines, whose hardware and software platform aims to accelerate the realization of practical quantum computers, will equip the lab along with Bluefors, a maker of cryogenic measurement systems in quantum technology who will support quantum research.

The facility is designed to host a nanofabrication cleanroom for the prototyping of advanced quantum processing units. Experimentation on these chips is enabled by Quantum Machines control solutions and a cryostat farm designed to host 20 Bluefors dilution refrigerators, Alice & Bob said.

Quantum Machines said in February it had raised $170 million in mid-stage funding.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Susan Fenton, Elaine Hardcastle)