"In Pasqal's processors, neutral atoms are manipulated with laser light to realize on-demand quantum processors with high connectivity and at an unprecedented scale," the company says.
The French start-up Pasqal is developing a quantum computer. The company has just raised 25 million Euros from the investment fund specializing in quantum - Quantonation - and the new investment fund of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces.
"The Ministry of the Armed Forces is pleased to support the development of the French nugget Pasqal thanks to the first investment of the new Defense Innovation fund," said Minister Florence Parly. “Pasqal will be one of the leaders in quantum computing in the future. Defense applications are multiple and sometimes highly strategic,” she adds.
"The funding will be used to advance the development of Pasqal's analog and digital quantum processors, strengthen its application co-design approach, and build its hybrid cloud offer Quantum Computing as a Service as well as to initiate international expansion", indicates a press release from the company.
Pasqal has already built a quantum machine
Pasqal was created in 2019. This start-up is the result of work carried out at the Optics Institute of the University of Paris-Saclay. Today it employs around twenty people.
Pasqal has already built a quantum machine, which operates on its premises. Two other machines are under construction, and should be delivered to customers in early 2023.
Pasqal processors use neutral atoms manipulated by laser. "In Pasqal's processors, neutral atoms are manipulated with laser light to realize on-demand quantum processors with high connectivity and at an unprecedented scale," said a company statement, technology that allows calculations to be performed with a power of more than 100 qubits. The goal is "to reach 1000 qubits in the coming years," Pasqal says.
A 1.8 billion Euros investment plan in quantum
French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the end of January an investment plan of 1.8 billion Euros to put France in "the top three in the world"; quantum technologies .
The French plan plans to devote an envelope of nearly 800 million Euros to computers alone, whether they are the first machines to emerge (simulators and partially quantum machines, 350 million euros), or those that will appear in the longer term (fully-fledged quantum computers, 430 million euros).
The other envelopes will be devoted to sensors (250 million Euros), post-quantum cryptography (150 million euros), quantum communications (320 million Euros) and related technologies that make it possible to build quantum equipment (Cryogenics for example, 300 million Euros).