Xanadu and HyperLight present new photonic chip advancements

On July 29, Xanadu, a Canadian company in photonic (light particle) quantum computing, announced its newest breakthrough in partnership with HyperLight Corporation to develop photonic chips using thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN).

“Our long-standing collaboration with HyperLight has been instrumental in achieving our hardware roadmap,” said Zachary Vernon, CTO of hardware at Xanadu. 

Through the combined efforts of both companies, a new chip was created that demonstrated waveguide losses of only 2dB/m, meaning that the amount of light lost as it uses waveguides to travel through the chip has been dramatically reduced. Additionally, the switches that direct where the light goes in the chip demonstrated a loss of only 20mdB of light, one of the lowest recorded values of light loss for this kind of switch. Information can now travel through the chip with much less interference.

“The unprecedented performance we’ve achieved with these new photonic chips sets a new benchmark for performance in the industry and brings us closer to delivering utility-scale photonic quantum computers,” said Vernon.

This new chip was manufactured in a high-volume fabrication plant (fab). This means that this groundbreaking chip, which is setting new benchmarks in performance, can be easily scaled up and prepped for commercial production, which will be crucial for overcoming current limitations that prevent photonic quantum computers from growing in scale.

Source: Xanadu via NewsWire