Pawsey and Quantum Brilliance join forces to advance Australian Quantum Computing

An Australia-first commercial partnership between a supercomputing centre and quantum computing provider

The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre and Quantum Brilliance will be collaborating to develop Australia’s first quantum-supercomputing hub for innovation.

This collaboration is already starting to implement the recommendations from “Growing Australia’s Quantum Technology Industry”, a new roadmap from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.

CSIRO estimates the potential market opportunity for Australia from quantum computing at $2.5 billion per annum in revenue and 10,000 new jobs by 2040, without counting the significant growth and value that quantum computing will bring to Australia’s other industries. When other quantum technologies like sensing and communications are added, the potential market opportunity rises to ~$4.3 billion and 16,000 new jobs.

This makes the possible quantum technology market value comparable to long-standing Australian markets including wool ($3.6 billion, 2016-2017) and wheat ($5.8 billion, 2017-2018) industries.

Pawsey’s Chief Technology Officer Ugo Varetto is positive about the opportunities this collaboration will provide to the Australian scientific community.

“We are excited to engage with Quantum Brilliance and the opportunity to develop our quantum computing expertise and help ensure that Pawsey can continue to deliver the best possible service to its user community. We are looking forward to exploring how quantum computing can contribute to solving grand challenges alongside existing and future high-performance computing systems.”

This collaboration will see quantum expertise developed among Pawsey staff to then install and provide access to a quantum emulator at Pawsey and to work collaboratively with leading Australian researchers.

Dr Cathy Foley, CSIRO’s Chief Scientist, enthusiastically supports the partnership.

“This is very exciting to see, and represents an important step in translating this technology into real applications that create impact. This kind of collaboration is exactly what Australia needs, and is aligned with the recommendations of the Quantum Roadmap that CSIRO just released.”

Quantum Brilliance is a leading Australian quantum computing company, using diamond to develop quantum computers that can operate at room temperature, without the cryogenics or complex infrastructure of other quantum technologies.

“Diamond means that instead of filling up a room with cryogenics, you can hold a quantum computer in your hand,” says Quantum Brilliance CEO, Dr Andrew Horsley.

“That’s a game-changer for how we can use quantum.”

“Quantum hardware on-site at Pawsey will lower barriers to entry and allow anyone, anywhere to participate in quantum engineering. We want to help Australian businesses and researchers be at the forefront of identifying and exploiting the most disruptive quantum computing applications,” said Quantum Brilliance co-founder, Dr Marcus Doherty.

Join our next Pawsey Friday; Why Quantum? on Friday 29 May at 2:00 pm AWST to find out if Quantum Computing is for you and its benefits from our expert panel. Register here.

Quantum Brilliance is a spin-out from the Australian National University and a current participant in the CSIRO ON Accelerator. They will present as part of the ON Virtual Demo Night on 4 June. Register here.

Ugo Varetto Pawsey CTO

Quantum Brilliance, Dr Marcus Doherty and Dr Andrew Horsley