Alice&Bob raises $3.3 million to create the first fault-tolerant quantum computer

Alice&Bob has raised $3.3 million to join the quantum computing arms race by accelerating research that promises to make this next generation computing more stable.

Elaia Partners and Breega led the round of funding for the Paris-based startup which has developed its first prototype. The company is using research that has been developed across an unusual consortium of French universities and research institutes.

The founders claim they are close to solving one of the fundamental scientific problems that has limited development of more powerful quantum computing. Whether they make good on the promise could have a big impact across every industry eager to see a new type of computing architecture that promises to deliver greater processing horsepower to power applications such as AI, autonomous products, and personalized medicine.

“We’re really aiming for the perfect quantum computer and not settling for anything in between,” said Alice&Bob CEO Théau Peronnin.

Quantum computing has attracted growing hype over the past year as corporations such as IBM, Microsoft, and Google has poured money into the field and begun touting various milestones. Startups are also attracting growing investment and European leaders have identified quantum computing as a field where it hopes to become a technical and entrepreneurial leader in the coming decades.

Of course, all of this depends on whether quantum computing can ever truly deliver on its potential.

The current standard computing architecture uses processors that send electric pulses through gates that can exist in one of two states: open or closed (1 or 0). By operating at the atomic level, quantum computers are powered by “quantum bits” or “qubits” that can exist in multiple states. That theoretically would allow these machines to perform such massive processing chores as simulating the human brain.

However, there remain a range of fundamental scientific problems that must be solved to make such computing power, which remains highly volatile, a reality.

Getting particles to exist for a useful length of time in a quantum state, so-called “quantum entanglement” is an enormous physics problem. Once the qubits are then asked to start performing any computing tasks, they quickly encounter a host of barriers that cause “quantum errors” and cause them to break down.

Engineers have devised a range of patchwork approaches to address the errors, (“quantum error corrections”) and maintain stability. Many of these imperfect solutions are being embraced to develop working quantum computers that can function in the short-term, but limit their upside over the long haul. In addition, these solutions make it difficult to build any quantum machines at enough scale to have a real impact.

Peronnin and his cofounder, Raphaël Lescanne, officially created Alice&Bob in February to commercialize research being done across France to target the stubborn issue of “quantum errors.” The cofounders are affiliated with France’s Ecole Normale Supérieure, the Paris and Lyon campuses respectively.

The company name refers to standard scientific lingo that labels the sender (point A) and the receiver (point B) of a message as “Alice and Bob.”

The pair said they are using research that has found ways to limit some errors and is on track to solve other errors. One prototype reduced the number of errors by a factor of 300 using a process that automates the corrections.

“Our prototype shows how autonomous error correction can suppress exponentially some of the errors in a quantum computer,” Peronnin said.

That would allow them to build a quantum machine that uses a simpler and more stable design. That fault tolerance would be the key to building breakthrough hardware, they said. With this new generation of computing, Peronnin said hardware will be the key differentiator for companies that operate in this field, rather than the software or algorithms that run on it.

“The one who will be controlling the hardware will be controlling the chain of value because it’s the hard part,” he said.

What makes this project unusual is the widespread cooperation of France’s academic community. Unlike Silicon Valley where universities such as Stanford frequently spin out research into new startups, France’s academic community has traditionally been less entrepreneurial.

The company has set a target of 5 years for its first fully operational quantum computer, which if delivered would cut in half the 10 years currently predicted for an error-free quantum computer. There has been ongoing debate on whether quantum computers will really be able to replace current processing architectures, or whether they will only be superior for certain narrowly defined tasks.

The Alice&Bob team argues that their approach will eventually be able to expand the impact of quantum computers to a much wider range of industries and tasks.

“If you have a fault-tolerant universe on a quantum computer, you can already pretty much change the face of the world,” Peronnin said. “That’s mostly due to the new types of chemistry and material science that you will enable.”