Xanadu Unveils First On-Chip Error-Resistant Photonic Qubit

TORONTO, June 4, 2025 /CNW/ - Xanadu has achieved a significant milestone in the development of scalable quantum hardware by generating error-resistant photonic qubits on an integrated chip platform. A foundational result in Xanadu's roadmap, this first-ever demonstration of such qubits on a chip is now published in Nature.

This breakthrough builds on Xanadu's recent announcement of the Aurora system, which demonstrated—for the first time—all key components required to build a modular, networked, and scalable photonic quantum computer. With this latest demonstration of robust qubit generation using silicon-based photonic chips, Xanadu further strengthens the scalability pillar of its architecture.

The quantum states produced in this experiment, known as GKP states, consist of superpositions of many photons to encode information in an error-resistant manner—an essential requirement for future fault-tolerant quantum computers. These states allow logic operations to be performed using deterministic, room-temperature-compatible techniques, and they are uniquely well-suited for networking across chips using standard fiber connections.

This demonstration of generating photonic qubits was enabled by a number of key technological achievements from Xanadu's hardware team. These include the development of photon-number-resolving detectors with detection efficiencies above 99%, the fabrication of customized ultra-low loss silicon nitride waveguides on 300 mm wafer platforms, and the implementation of in-house state-of-the-art optical packaging.

"GKP states are, in a sense, the optimal photonic qubit, since they enable logic gates and error correction at room temperature and using relatively straightforward, deterministic operations," says Zachary Vernon, CTO of Hardware at Xanadu. "This demonstration is an important empirical milestone showing our recent successes in loss reduction and performance improvement across chip fabrication, component design, and detector efficiency."

The next hurdle towards a utility-scale photonic quantum computer remains clear: further reduction of optical loss will allow for higher quality GKP states suitable for fault-tolerance. With another significant milestone in its hardware roadmap complete, Xanadu remains focused on further optimizing fabrication and photonics packaging processes to alleviate optical loss across its platform.

About Xanadu: Xanadu is a Canadian quantum computing company with the mission to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. Founded in 2016, Xanadu has become one of the world's leading quantum hardware and software companies. The company also leads the development of PennyLane, an open-source software library for quantum computing and application development. Visit xanadu.ai or follow us on X @XanaduAI.

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SOURCE Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc.