Azure Quantum is a platform for innovation. There’s no better place to experiment and unlock innovation today and prepare the quantum solutions of tomorrow. Last week, we shared the exciting news that we’ve demonstrated a significant and foundational milestone towards realizing a topological qubit on the path to a scalable quantum machine. And while we’re in the early days as an industry, we also know people are eager to expand their quantum computing expertise today and contribute their innovations to a scaled quantum future.
Our rich and growing quantum hardware ecosystem lets you explore and test quantum algorithms and solutions across a diverse range of quantum hardware architectures. And the best news is, you can start exploring leading-edge quantum hardware in Azure Quantum for free. Today, we’re thrilled to expand our offerings further by welcoming Pasqal into the Azure Quantum family.
Pasqal brings neutral-atom quantum technology to Azure Quantum
We unlock new research and innovation capabilities through Azure Quantum with our new partner Pasqal, bringing an entirely new type of quantum technology to our portfolio. Pasqal is a leading developer of neutral atom-based quantum technology which allows you to manipulate neutral atoms (or atoms with an equal number of electrons and protons) directly so that you can pursue areas ranging from graph-based machine learning and material science simulations to optimization problems and problems governed by differential equations. Neutral atom-based quantum processors operate at room temperature and long coherence times, and have impressive qubit connectivity. Pre-register today for Azure Quantum’s private preview of Pasqal.
“With the coming availability of our system via Azure Quantum and the differentiated range of new digital and analog quantum computational capabilities that it introduces, we hope to accelerate the quantum programs of the platform’s community and ultimately help them achieve real-world solutions to the world’s most critical challenges.”
—Georges-Olivier Reymond, CEO and Founder, Pasqal
With the addition of Pasqal, researchers and developers will be able to enjoy access to neutral atom-based quantum computing from Pasqal; digital, gate-based machines from IonQ, QCI, Quantinuum, and Rigetti; and quantum-inspired optimization (QIO) from Microsoft, Toshiba, and 1Qbit. Not only is Pasqal joining Azure Quantum, but we’re also excited to share the latest capabilities available through Azure Quantum from quantum hardware partners across our ecosystem.
Azure Quantum will be the first cloud platform to enable access to IonQ Aria
IonQ Aria is a new premium system that can run hundreds of accurate quantum gates in a single algorithm, compared to other quantum systems capable of running only dozens of gates at a time. IonQ Aria boasts a record of 20 algorithmic qubits (#AQ)1, based on measured results using real-world algorithms2. In IonQ benchmarking tests, IonQ Aria was able to successfully execute quantum circuits containing more than 550 gates, enabling much larger quantum applications.
“We’ve demonstrated that IonQ Aria will allow researchers to execute a multitude of quantum algorithms of practical interest with accuracy and at a premium level of quantum computation. Azure Quantum is the first quantum cloud platform through which we are making IonQ Aria accessible.”
—Peter Chapman, President and CEO, IonQ
Quantinuum’s state-of-the-art System Model H1 is available through Azure Quantum
Quantinuum’s quantum computers include high-fidelity, fully connected qubits, low error rates, mid-circuit measurement, and qubit reuse. In December 2021, Quantinuum reported its second-generation H1 QPU achieved a measured quantum volume of 2048, an increase of 10 times within one year. In preparation for running on the hardware, developers can refine and debug circuits with the companion Quantinuum emulator with a noise model and scale that mimics the operations of the H1 systems.
Recently-announced Rigetti Aspen-M-1 will soon join private preview
We’ve already announced that Rigetti’s gate-based superconducting processors would be coming to Azure Quantum and utilizing Quantum Intermediate Representation (QIR) to enable low latency and parallel execution. We’re pleased to share that the private preview of Rigetti on Azure Quantum will include access to both Aspen-11 with 40 qubits and the latest Aspen-M-1 with 80 qubits as well as support for the Quil programming language. The Aspen-M-1 is the first multi-chip quantum processor using Rigetti’s proprietary modular chip architecture.
“Along with access to our recently announced Aspen-M-1 system, Rigetti’s integration with Azure Quantum also supports the Quil quantum programming language and the ability to program the quantum processor at the pulse level. This low-level access will enable developers to experiment with novel techniques to increase performance, tune to a particular use case, and develop custom gate definitions.”
—David Rivas, SVP Systems and Services, Rigetti Computing
Quantum Circuits’ full-stack system, private preview is coming soon
QCI is building a novel full-stack superconducting circuits quantum computing system with real-time feedback that enables error correction, encoding-agnostic entangling gates. As seen at the 2021 Q2B conference, QCI, the QIR Alliance and Microsoft have successfully collaborated to demonstrate an Azure Quantum implementation of a new random walk phase estimation algorithm that executes on QCI hardware and takes advantage of QCI’s capability to execute a quantum program with embedded classical computation. The QCI system will be accessible soon through Azure Quantum’s private preview.
Pre-register today for private previews
Do you want to be one of the first to access these advances in quantum hardware through Azure Quantum? Pre-registration is now open for the private preview of Pasqal and superconducting quantum partners Rigetti and QCI. Let us know if you’d like to participate and join the community of innovators on the Azure Quantum platform.
Run on real hardware today for free
Have you experienced the thrill of running on real quantum hardware? Whether new to quantum computing or an expert, you can run on quantum hardware available in Azure Quantum for free, with an automatic $500 credit per participating hardware platform or up to $10,000 in credits through the Azure Quantum Research Credits program. Just set up a free Azure account (check out free Azure accounts for students), create an Azure Quantum Workspace in the Azure Portal, and kickstart your quantum journey with Azure Quantum today.
1#AQ is a metric that IonQ proposed in 2020 to assist in evaluating a quantum computer’s utility in real-world settings, with the goal of focusing on practical applicability.
2T. Lubinski, S.Johri, P. Varosy et al., “Application-Oriented Performance Benchmarks for Quantum Computing”, arXiv:2110.03137, (2021).