Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum reach new milestones

Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum have announced three scientific and technical milestones that they say demonstrate the viability of large-scale quantum computing.

For the first time, researchers at Honeywell Quantum Solutions have been able to demonstrate repeated rounds of real-time quantum error correction (QEC), an advancement that represents a significant step toward the realisation of large-scale quantum computing. The company also achieved a quantum volume of 1,024, doubling its own record from just four months ago. Beyond the hardware milestones, Cambridge Quantum has developed a new quantum algorithm that uses fewer qubits to solve optimisation problems.

Honeywell researchers addressed quantum error correction by creating a single logical qubit from seven of the 10 physical qubits available on Honeywell System H1 Model and applying multiple rounds of QEC. Protected from the main types of errors that occur in a quantum computer, Honeywell’s logical qubit combats errors that accumulate during computations.

“Big enterprise-level problems require precision and error-corrected logical qubits to scale successfully,” said Tony Uttley, President of Honeywell Quantum Solutions. “These technical milestones of quantum error correction and quantum volume, together with advanced software from Cambridge Quantum, will allow us to increase the viability of quantum computing in the real-world.”

Back in June, Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum announced that they were combining to form the world’s largest, stand-alone quantum computing company.

The two companies have long worked together to develop quantum-enabled solutions and the new quantum algorithm illustrates the combined impact of Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum and the type of quantum-enabled solutions that can be expected from the new company. This latest collaboration speeds up convergence, accuracy, and scalability of quantum algorithms for combinatorial optimisation problems such as supply chain challenges in manufacturing or route optimization scenarios in logistics.

Cambridge Quantum has developed new methods to accelerate convergence up to 100 times faster, improve the solution quality, and reduce hardware resource requirements compared to standard Variational Quantum Eigensolver and Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm. These new methods were tested using the Honeywell System Model H1, Honeywell’s latest commercial offering.