Israeli startup Quantum Machines, which is developing a system consisting of both hardware and software for the control and operation of quantum computers, has announced the launch of a new programming language called QUA. Using the new language, research groups will be able to write algorithms that can be run on any quantum computer in the world of any kind.
In its last fund raising round, held recently, Quantum Machines raised $17.5 million, bringing the total amount raised by the company to $23 million. The round was led by Avigdor Willenz, who recently sold artificial intelligence chip company Habana Labs to Intel for $2 billion. Harel, TLV Partners and Battery Ventures participated.
At the time of the fund-raising round, the company said that its Quantum Orchestration Platform had been adopted over the preceding year by several international corporations, startups, and laboratories in academic institutions, and that the number of paying customers was growing from month to month. The QUA language forms part of this platform.
Talking to "Globes", Quantum Machines CEO Dr. Itamar Sivan explained what the two products were about. "A quantum computer has various systems, for storage or data transfer, but to operate all these quantum systems you need quantum orchestration," he said. "A quantum processor is like a very strong muscle that can lift heavy weights, but even the strongest muscle in the world needs other systems to operate it. We are developers of systems that operate the quantum systems and make it possible to exploit their potential. At the core of our system is a classic processor that operates a quantum processor. That's the orchestration.
"In the real world, he quantum computers will become part of data centers like those of Microsoft, Amazon, or IBM. The data center will have a quantum processor that will be in a refrigerator, but alongside it will be all the rest of the cloud apparatus - infrastructure consisting of a great deal of electronics, processors and routers. We do all that. We put together boxes that are installed at enterprises or national laboratories.
"What we have now launched is the language that makes it possible to run the most complicated algorithms in the world on our systems. We developed it after we realized that this was one of the things that if we could do it, it could advance the whole quantum industry."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 18, 2020
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