IonQ Demonstrated Remote Ion Entanglement for Large Quantum Computers

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Ion Trap Quantum computer company, IonQ, demonstrated remote ion-ion entanglement. They built off the ion-photon entanglement achievement announced in February, this demonstration announced in September showcases the second out of four significant milestones required to develop photonic interconnects – a foundational step towards quantum networking and a core component of IonQ’s scaling strategy.

IonQ is pursuing scale in tandem with performance. IonQ’s north star is scalability at high performance, and modularity is a critical component of this strategy. IonQ’s approach to scale relies on making engineering and architectural decisions that support performance at large qubit counts. In addition, IonQ’s strategy for scaling takes advantage of multicore operation and photonically interconnected systems. Connecting multiple QPUs and quantum systems with photonic interconnects will enable IonQ to target 1000s of physical qubits in the future. These higher qubit counts will unlock new problem spaces and enable developers and researchers to tackle increasingly complex problems.

In 2025, IonQ expects to have the IonQ Tempo. Tempo is expected to be capable of commercial advantage for certain applications. Tempo is designed to have faster gate speeds, mid-circuit measurement, and 99.9% fidelity, all helping to unlock larger and more complex problem classes and deliver a faster time-to-solution.

Quantum computing is making massive strides, and at IonQ, scalability guides every technical and architectural decision we make. At the core of this mission is modularity, which is the most important enabler of efficient scalability and essential to IonQ’s ability to expand quantum processing power. IonQ’s modularity is based on connecting QPUs together to increase the total number of qubits via Photonic Interconnects, which are communication links that leverage light – or photons – to transmit quantum information between different components or quantum processors. Photonic interconnects enable qubits to be entangled across individual quantum processing units (QPUs) to form a larger, more capable quantum system. IonQ’s approach uses well understood scientific principles to network the qubits and architectures similar to today’s most powerful classical computers to achieve efficient scale.

While the science and procedure behind photonic interconnects has been understood for years in a research setting, an important endeavor for IonQ has been transitioning this technology from a lab setting to a commercial environment. The ability to reach another milestone is further evidence of the advantage of IonQ’s well understood architecture for quantum networking.

Advancing Photonic Interconnects at IonQ

At IonQ, we are bringing this technology to the technical readiness level needed to start integrating it in commercially available quantum computers. Our path to photonic interconnects consists of four main milestones, each of which expands on the previous milestone and culminates in a large-scale, networked, multi quantum processing unit (QPU) system.

Milestone 1: Ion-Photon Entanglement

The first – and one of the most challenging milestones in entangling quantum information across a network of QPUs – is generating and manipulating single photons entangled with a qubit to form a network node. Such a node must be capable of three key capabilities. First, the node must have the ability to generate “interconnect photons” entangled with the interconnect qubit. Second, the node must be capable of sending these interconnect photons through fiber optics to a detection hub. Lastly, the detection hub must be able to manipulate and measure the state of the interconnect photon to confirm ion-photon entanglement.

5 thoughts on “IonQ Demonstrated Remote Ion Entanglement for Large Quantum Computers”

  1. Quantum communication isn’t as fun as it sounds. It’s still done by sending electrons or photons. It’s still limited by the speed of light. The only difference is that, instead of encoding bits into the electrons or photons, you encode qbits.

    It’s only good for two things, as far as I know. One is for connecting the parts inside a quantum computer. Which helps with scaling. The other is for creating interesting sensors, which are widely separated, but send each other qbits to allow some interesting ways to improve sensing.

    • The above was meant as a reply to the post below. It sounds like long-distance entanglement would allow faster than light communication. But sadly, it doesn’t.

      • No, it seems quantum communication does not travel “faster then light” It seems to “emote, emerge” at more then one location, at the same moment. No travel, no matter how “fast” seems required. It’s not a matter of going “here to there” at any speed. At the quantum level, everything seems to happen everywhere now. If I knew how? I’d win several Nobel prizes and possibly be nominated as God. (Which I would not like, I’m really very camera shy)

        • The Shrödinger equation has a variable “t” in it. That stands for time. Psi is a function of both position and time. And there’s a partial with respect to t, which means a speed per second. So the core of quantum mechanics has both distance and time, and it treats things as happening sequentially in time, not all at once.

  2. Don’t you feel silly when you see something and think” “why didn’t I think of” oh never mind. Quantum communications offers the potential for computing I can only imagine. (I can imagine some very cool stuff, but this gives me a headache) Even a computer on your desk (or fills a room, yes even today), has many integrated circuits, that must “talk” to, or at minimum through each other. IC’s move electrons across a 2dimensional “grid” like a highway (yes traffic can be a bitch, even when that “highway” is VERY tiny). An electron, or photon moving across, or threw a material takes time. Even a (to us big humans) very short distance, and in “time” so quick, we can only measure it with instruments, usually. But at the quantum level? Oh, lord…

    At the Q level, there is no concept of distance, or time. We perceive and (well, try) make sense of our world by “associated comparisons’ Miles per hour, feet per second, etc. Time is a variable of human “impressions” Einstein stated, and experiments since proven, there is no “absolute”, call it “hardwired” time. It’s not just a psychological perception (yeah, it’s that too), but a physical reality that’s “pliable” Quantum mechanics makes relativity look as “complex” as frying an egg (break egg, put in pan, don’t forget to turn stove off).

    Quantum computers, separated by any distance, and even perhaps time, if “connected” would not be connected in anyway we currently understand connected communications. At “our level”, all communications take time, some time. We can “compact” a “burst” signal so it’s signal exposure is incredibly brief (this goes back to WW2), Or spread the signal out, unless you put the pieces together, each at the right time, it’s noise. Makes a “normal” puzzle almost sound fun. (I have ADHD, I hate puzzles)

    But all this, still requires some time. At the Q level? Everything happens, everywhere, at the same time. Get a Q computer/communication up and running? Let this old man play with it, just a little while? (I don’t get out much).

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