Corning: Xanadu and Corning Incorporated Sign Collaboration Agreement to Advance Fibres for Photonic Quantum Computing

Xanadu and Corning Incorporated will collaborate to develop customized fibre and fibre-array solutions to enable low-loss networking of photonic quantum computing chips. This collaboration will bring together Xanadu's expertise in developing ultra-low-loss photonic chip components using customized fabrication and design techniques, and Corning's future-ready innovations in low-loss optical fibre and high-precision fibre arrays. The combination of expertise will help enable the development of fault-tolerant, universal photonic quantum computers at scale. Building a utility-scale photonic quantum computer will require thousands of integrated photonic chips to be connected and networked using low-loss optical fibre. In a demonstration recently published in Nature, Xanadu demonstrated the world's first fibre-networked photonic quantum computer, named Aurora, consisting of 35 packaged photonic chips and a combined 13 km of optical fibre. In its current form, Aurora can in principle be scaled from its current 12-qubits to the coveted one-million-qubit benchmark that is estimated to be needed for fault tolerance. However, the fibre interconnects require specialty fibre and fibre arrays to enable the low-loss chip-to-fibre coupling needed to meet the stringent loss requirements necessary to scale up the architecture laid out by Aurora. This collaboration leverages Corning's expertise in developing and manufacturing low-loss fibre interconnects, and will contribute to addressing Xanadu's next challenge of driving down optical losses. Specifically, optical fibre and fibre-chip interconnects must be designed to meet the stringent loss requirements needed to scale the Aurora architecture. Developing components alongside Corning will help realize that, and results from this collaboration will be pivotal in minimizing loss in Xanadu's photonic infrastructure. Xanadu and Corning Incorporated will collaborate to develop customized fibre and fibre-array solutions to enable low-loss networking of photonic quantum computing chips. This collaboration will bring together Xanadu's expertise in developing ultra-low-loss photonic chip components using customized fabrication and design techniques, and Corning's future-ready innovations in low-loss optical fibre and high-precision fibre arrays. The combination of expertise will help enable the development of fault-tolerant, universal photonic quantum computers at scale. Building a utility-scale photonic quantum computer will require thousands of integrated photonic chips to be connected and networked using low-loss optical fibre. In a demonstration recently published in Nature, Xanadu demonstrated the world's first fibre-networked photonic quantum computer, named Aurora, consisting of 35 packaged photonic chips and a combined 13 km of optical fibre. In its current form, Aurora can in principle be scaled from its current 12-qubits to the coveted one-million-qubit benchmark that is estimated to be needed for fault tolerance. However, the fibre interconnects require specialty fibre and fibre arrays to enable the low-loss chip-to-fibre coupling needed to meet the stringent loss requirements necessary to scale up the architecture laid out by Aurora. This collaboration leverages Corning's expertise in developing and manufacturing low-loss fibre interconnects, and will contribute to addressing Xanadu's next challenge of driving down optical losses. Specifically, optical fibre and fibre-chip interconnects must be designed to meet the stringent loss requirements needed to scale the Aurora architecture. Developing components alongside Corning will help realize that, and results from this collaboration will be pivotal in minimizing loss in Xanadu's photonic infrastructure.