Completed Physics & Astronomy Computing & AI

UpScale: Scalable quantum information enabled by integrated optics

Funder UKRI
Recipient organisation Fraunhofer UK Research Limited
Funding £3.1M
Period Feb 2022 — Mar 2025

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Quantum computers need thousands of precisely controlled qubits to outperform classical machines, but today’s systems can barely manage a few dozen. UpScale aims to build the optical hardware that will let them scale up. The core problem is that each qubit—whether a trapped ion or a semiconductor photon source—must be individually addressed and read out with laser light. Current approaches use bulky, room-temperature optics that cannot expand to the necessary scale. UpScale will replace those with a silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit, similar to the chips used in telecommunications, that routes and controls light on a tiny, cryogenic-compatible platform. The project also develops the packaging and fibre-coupling needed to connect these chips to the qubits at low temperatures. If successful, the platform will give commercial quantum computing companies a ready-made, manufacturable way to control hundreds or thousands of qubits. That would accelerate progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of solving problems in drug discovery, materials design, and logistics. The photonic chips and cryogenic packaging themselves could also become standalone commercial products for other quantum systems. The project is applied engineering, not fundamental science—it takes existing laboratory results and pushes them toward industrial deployment.

View original technical description
Quantum information processing (QIP) will revolutionise many industries with applications ranging from drug discovery to supply chain management. However, QIP faces a technological challenge in scalability. To secure quantum advantage and a fault-tolerant general purpose quantum computer many high-fidelity qubits and sources must be controlled. UpScale brings together four commercial partners and two research organisations to address this challenge. By using a scalable integrated photonic routing and addressing platform, different QIP architectures of trapped-ions and semiconductor photon sources will be supported. The integrated photonic platform leverages decades of development in telecommunications systems and semiconductor manufacturing and is compatible with cryogenic temperature operation and multiple independent qubit systems. UpScale will develop and deploy two major and innovative integrated photonic technologies: a silicon nitride (SiN) photonic integrated chip platform and cryogenic-compatible photonic coupling and packaging. The focus of UpScale is delivery of high-TRL scalable demonstrators rather than fundamental research. It will build on several recently published results and use photonic foundry services to provide a reliable supply chain and solve technical challenges associated with scalability at the pace required for commercialisation. The project is designed to maximise return on investment by developing technological solutions for scaling of QIP systems, for the benefit of multiple commercial partners. Additional routes to market include the commercialisation of photonic systems and cryogenic packaging services.

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Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

HyperIon : Demonstrating a Scalable, Industrialised Qubit-Photon Interface (QPI) for Distributed Quantum Computing
Quantum Photonics for Scale
Scalable Two-Dimensional Quantum Integrated Photonics
Scalable Quantum Photonics Control
SPIQuE: Semiconductor Photonics with InP Quantum Emitters

Original classification

Collaborative R&D

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