Startup Collaborates with Experts to Advance Quantum Control Systems

Q-CTRL, a startup that uses the principles of control engineering to render quantum technology applicable, recently announced the induction of a technical advisory board, which comprises experts from a wide range of fields to boost the industry’s development.

The technical advisory board will offer crucial recommendations to drive Q-CTRL’s motives in developing next-generation quantum control technologies to assist both quantum sensing applications and quantum computing.

The board includes the following members:

• Pieter Abbeel, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, also serving as the director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. His research concentrates on deep learning and the application of machine learning to robotics. Abbeel is also the co-founder of covariant.ai, a venture-funded start-up that works to teach robots new, intricate skills.
• Jason Cong, the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Excellence in the Samueli School of Engineering and former chair of the computer science department at UCLA. His works are related to the automated synthesis framework for programmable computing architectures, including, electronic design automation and quantum computing. He is also the founder and co-founder of many successful start-ups, including AutoESL Design Technologies, which was acquired by Xilinx in 2011 and led to the most successful FPGA high-level synthesis tool Vivado/Vitis HLS.
• Richard Murray, the Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. Murray is an expert in the field of classical control engineering, concentrating on the application of feedback and control to networked systems.
• Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research areas include robotics, mobile computing and data science.
• Birgitta Whaley, a professor of chemical physics and director, Berkeley Quantum Information and Computation Center at UC Berkeley. Whaley is an expert in the quantum control theory and application of quantum and traditional feedback and control to quantum coherent systems.

Our mission is to accelerate the developing greenfield quantum technology industry, and that requires critical insight from outside of our specialized discipline. Our technical advisory board has a wealth of experience in advising academia, government, and industry in a diverse number of technology areas, as well as tremendous success in building leading startups.

Michael J. Biercuk, Professor, Founder, and CEO, Q-CTRL

“Securing their interest in Q-CTRL’s mission speaks to the quality of the work we’re doing as enablers of a nascent industry with nearly unlimited potential. We’re honored to have this extraordinary collection of global innovators working together on our behalf,” added Biercuk.

Quantum technology leverages the physics on tiny size scales to deliver breakthrough performance across applications, ranging from new forms of computing to ultrasensitive detectors that enable the Earth to be viewed in a completely new way.

Converting these concepts into beneficial technologies has been hampered by the instability of quantum devices. Resolving this issue is crucial to developing the quantum technology industry.

Q-CTRL boasts expertise in using control engineering to stabilize quantum hardware and derive beneficial performance in real-world settings, such as data centers, aircraft or in space. The solutions it offers have been validated to provide 10 to 100 times improvements in the performance of quantum hardware, which includes demonstrations on IBM quantum computers.

Recently, Q-CTRL widened its operations to develop a new kind of “software defined” quantum sensors application in Earth observation, navigation and climate monitoring. The company’s quantum control infrastructure software for quantum sensing and quantum computing is widely available in the market and assists users in the private sector, academia and national labs.