Oxford Ionics selected for Quantum Missions Pilot to upgrade NQCC testbed with advanced 2D ion traps

• The project, called ‘Q-Surge’, will enable a powerful upgrade to the ion trap technology used in the Oxford Ionics quantum computer, ‘Quartet’, which will be delivered to the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) later this month 

• The Q-Surge consortium, led by Oxford Ionics with participation from Riverlane and Bay Photonics, was selected by the UK’s Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSIT) as part of the National Quantum Strategy Missions initiative

OXFORD, 11th March, 2025: Oxford Ionics, a world leader in trapped-ion quantum computing, today announced that it has been selected by the UK’s DSIT and Innovate UK for the Quantum Missions pilot to unlock scalable and commercially-useful quantum computing. 

The Quantum Missions Pilot programme is investing in quantum computing and projects that remove technological barriers to large-scale commercialisation and adoption of quantum technologies. Oxford Ionics was selected for its ‘Quantum Testbed Advancements Through 2D Trapping Architecture’ project, or ‘Q-Surge’, with participation from Quantum Error Correction (QEC) company Riverlane and photonics assembly and packaging company Bay Photonics. 

In order to unlock the commercial impact of quantum computing, today’s quantum computers must continue to rapidly scale to thousands of qubits without affecting speed or performance. The key to maintaining performance over rapid scaling lies with efficient design of ‘qubit routing’, or the way in which processors move information around the chip. Oxford Ionics has addressed this by engineering efficient 2D qubit connectivity, along with highly parallel ‘Electronic Qubit Control’ – a novel, patented technology which uses electronics, and not lasers, to manipulate its qubits. This allows the company to maintain high computational throughput as it scales to much larger qubit counts. The Q-Surge project will build on this fundamental work, adding innovations in packaging and QEC to further enhance scalability and performance for large-scale devices. 

The Q-Surge consortium combines record-breaking quantum chips with leading innovators in QEC and fabrication and packaging techniques for manufacturing these chips. Oxford Ionics is the market leader in trap design, routing, and high fidelity gate performance – it currently holds the world records in all three of quantum computing’s super metrics: single-gate fidelity, two-qubit gate fidelity, and quantum state preparation and measurement. Riverlane develops cutting-edge solutions for QEC, and will apply this expertise to support the consortium in making architectural design choices for optimal QEC performance.  Bay Photonics pioneers advanced packaging solutions for quantum technologies and will provide novel techniques to realise the electrical, photonic, and electrostatically shielded packaging of these high-density quantum devices. 

The output of this project will be used to upgrade Oxford Ionics’ trapped-ion quantum computer Quartet, which the NQCC purchased as part of its testbed programme, and which will be delivered later this month. In addition to upgrading the testbed technology, the Q-Surge project will remove the critical bottleneck of qubit routing, yielding a path towards quantum computers capable of executing 1 trillion operations and beyond.

Dr Chris Ballance, co-founder and CEO of Oxford Ionics, commented: “Oxford Ionics has been at the forefront of innovative, powerful chip design and manufacture for the past 5 years. We are thrilled to lead the Q-Surge consortium to apply this expertise by engineering our 2D ion traps at scale in order to remove one of the most critical barriers to market-catalysing quantum computers: qubit routing. We are especially excited to implement this technology as an upgrade to the quantum computer we are delivering to the NQCC later this month. Together with Riverlane and Bay Photonics, these pioneering innovations represent a significant step towards unleashing the full potential of quantum computing for widespread commercial use.”

Dr Steve Brierley OBE, Founder & CEO, Riverlane: “At Riverlane, we are laser focused on solving quantum error correction, the single biggest challenge standing in the way of useful quantum computing. Q-Surge is an important step toward building truly scalable quantum systems and we are proud to bring our expertise to this new consortium. By helping optimise Oxford Ionics' cutting-edge 2D ion trap architecture for quantum error correction, the consortium is making it possible to harness the full power of quantum computing sooner.”

Dr Andrew Robertson, CTO of Bay Photonics, commented: “Having been a key supporter of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme since its launch in 2014, we are now reaching pivotal commercialization milestones that demand robust, scalable packaging and assembly solutions for real-world deployment. This transition from research to application is critical, and Bay Photonics is at the forefront, delivering precise, high-performance photonic integration to enable the next generation of quantum technologies.”

About Oxford Ionics

Oxford Ionics was co-founded in 2019 by Dr Tom Harty and Dr Chris Ballance who both hold world records in quantum breakthroughs. The team includes 60 global experts across physics, quantum architecture, engineering and software and expects to triple headcount over the next 18 months as the business scales internationally. Oxford Ionics has raised £37 million to date with investors including Braavos, OSE, Lansdowne Partners, Prosus Ventures, 2xN, and Hermann Hauser (founder of chip giant ARM). In 2024, Oxford Ionics rapidly commercialised its technology, selling full-stack quantum computers to the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) and Germany’s Cyberagentur. The company also holds the world records in the three most important metrics for quantum performance: single- and two-qubit gate fidelity and quantum state preparation and measurement (SPAM). For more information, visit our website www.oxionics.com

About Riverlane

Riverlane’s mission is to make quantum computing useful, sooner. This will transform the future of computing and start an era of human progress as significant as the digital and industrial revolutions. Achieving this requires a 10,000x reduction in the system errors that quickly overwhelm all quantum computers, today. Riverlane is building Deltaflow, the quantum error correction (QEC) stack, to solve this problem across all qubit types. Having assembled the world’s leading experts in quantum error correction and chip design, Riverlane is now supplying over half of the world’s quantum computing companies. At Deltaflow’s core is the world’s most powerful quantum error decoder. Deltaflow is powered by a new class of patented QEC semiconductors designed and built by Riverlane.    

About Bay Photonics

Bay Photonics are an independent, flexible design and build facility offering reduced time to market, reduced technical risk and reduced product development cost solution for projects that the customer finds difficult to gain traction due to low volume, degree of technical difficulty, broad engineering know-how required and restricted access to assembly capability. With ultra-modern and well-equipped facilities, plus vastly experienced technical staff, Bay Photonics help make your Photonic IC (PIC) projects become a reality with their open and innovative packaging capability.