Berkeley Lab to Build Quantum Computing Testbed

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will receive $30 million over five years to build and operate an Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT).

Researchers will use the testbed to explore superconducting quantum processors and evaluate how these emerging quantum devices can be utilized to advance scientific research. As part of this effort, Berkeley Lab will collaborate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL) to deploy different quantum processor architecture.

According to Irfan Siddiqi, Berkeley Lab scientist and AQT director, one of the goals of this project is to set up a multipartner scientific collaboration to build a platform where basic outstanding questions about quantum computing can be answered. AQT will operate as an open resource for the community, allowing external researchers to evaluate superconducting architectures developed by testbed staff and collaborators for simulations in chemistry, materials, and other areas of computation. AQT will also help industry researchers by exploring what approaches are most likely to work and which ones do not. The industry can then take the ideas developed by the testbed and transform them into finished commercial products.