PEAQUE - A NSF Convergence Accelerator Project on Quantum Technology

Quantum computing promises to solve critical problems that are intractable by classical computers, but currently, it faces many scaling bottlenecks. We are developing a cold atom quantum control system in a miniaturized package, programmed with quantum software to empower quantum computing with 1000s of qubits and metrology with entangled atomic clocks. Dissemination of our system to the quantum technology industry will accelerate the realization of full-scale quantum computers capable of solving challenging problems from optimization algorithms to computational chemistry for drug discovery.
PEAQUE is a collaborative project of the University of Washington, Atom Computing, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, Boulder/JILA, the Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of Illinois.
PEAQUE addresses quantum computing scalability by developing a powerful optical control engine that interfaces cold atom qubits with quantum software. The core of this engine is a chip-scale Multi-Beam Illumination and Steering (MBIS) system, which leverages the latest advances in nanophotonics and optical materials to generate a multitude of laser spots and precisely focus them on a dense atom array. Each MBIS module includes a pixel array of 10 lithographically patterned devices each capable of emitting 10 individually steerable laser beams, creating a module with 100 beams from a package sized only ~10 cm^3, miniaturization by 3 orders of magnitude over existing technology. Multiplexed modules in an MBIS engine will be able to perform high-speed, parallel gate operations on large 2D or 3D lattices of cold-atom qubits, which is impossible with existing technology. The power of MBIS will enable the execution of quantum error correction (QEC) codes specially designed for cold atom qubits toward fault-tolerant computing. The photonic engine will also power entangled atomic clocks in a large lattice to advance quantum metrology. The complete PEAQUE solution package will accelerate building of a cold-atom noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computer with capable of solving optimization problems and performing quantum simulations.