Skip to main content

Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck used by Universal Quantum to raise $4.5 million to take on Google and build the 1-million qubit computer

* British quantum computing startup Universal Quantum has emerged from stealth to announce a £3.6 million seed round. * The startup wants to build a quantum computer with chips comprising one million qubits. For context, today's quantum computers have 20 to 50 qubits and the technology is difficult to scale up. * Others competing in the field include Google and IBM, with quantum computing promising major breakthroughs in climate change, drug discovery, and other scientific fields. * Read on for an exclusive look at Universal Quantum's pitch deck. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. British startup Universal Quantum has raised £3.6 million ($4.5 million) in new funding to try and beat IBM and Google to the moonshot of building a functioning quantum computer. The University of Sussex spinout has emerged from stealth to announce its ambition to build a 1-million qubit quantum computer and test whether the tech might solve some of humanity's biggest challenges. Quantum computing is at the very edge of physics and computer science, but the race to build a true super computer is heating up with Palo Alto's PsiQuantum raising $215 million in April, and Finland's IQM announcing a €15 million raise on Thursday. The promise of quantum computing is that it could be considerably more powerful than traditional computing, enabling humanity to solve major challenges around climate change, drug discovery, and areas we haven't thought of. The trouble is, quantum computers are extremely difficult to run and, depending on who you talk to, none have really managed to outstrip classical computers. In traditional computing, information is encoded in bits that are only one of two values at any one time, usually represented as 0 or 1, on or off. Quantum computing operates in the realm of quantum mechanics, a mysterious branch of physics that famously no one understands. And it doesn't rely on bits, but a unit called a qubit which can be in two states simultaneously. "What quantum computers do is make use of a number of very cool effects you see in the quantum world and one of them, for example, is that something can be in two places at the same time," said Dr Sebastian Weidt, CEO and cofounder of Universal Quantum, adding: "In a conventional computer, bits are represented as a one or a zero. And because we now live in the quantum world, we can represent ones and zeroes at the same time. That's where a lot of the computational power comes in." Different players working on this technology are taking different approaches to try and exhibit "quantum effects", Weidt said. IBM and other firms use superconducting qubits which are fabricated onto a chip, which is then cooled down to absolute zero or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius. That technology literally requires something like a giant refrigerator which is, for obvious reasons, quite difficult to scale up. Universal Quantum says it has developed tech based on trapped ions. "You use individual charged atoms and you encode information inside of them, so each atom becomes a qubit," said Weidt, adding that the qubits are in a vacuum system with cool technology and there is no need for giant refrigerators. Weidt argues this will be easier to scale up to build a true quantum computer. "It's not enough to be at tens of qubits, and that's where we're currently at .... we need to be at the millions of qubits. "We didn't care too much about doing stuff with five qubits, 10 qubits to get a great Nature paper," he added. "We asked ourselves: 'Okay, what would it take to build a 1-million qubit computer, what's stopping us right now?'" Universal Quantum's new backers include Village Global — a fund that offers connections to Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Other backers include Hoxton Ventures, Propagator VC, Luminous VC, and 7 Percent. Read Universal Quantum's (redacted) pitch deck below:
https://bit.ly/3fATiMj

Popular posts from this blog

Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them, at which point the glass turns opaque

* Two see-through bathrooms have been installed in public parks in Tokyo. * They are made from "smart glass" designed so people can see how clean they are inside before using them. The glass turns opaque when the bathroom is locked and in use. * The stalls are part of a project that is redoing 17 of the city's public bathrooms with different designers to make them more accessible and appealing. * The goal is to fight assumptions that public toilets are "are dark, dirty, smelly, and scary," said the nonprofit foundation behind the project. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Tokyo has installed two see-through bathroom facilities in public parks, allowing people to see how clean they are before deciding to use them, at which point they turn opaque. The bathrooms are made of colored "smart glass," which turns opaque when the stalls are locked, said Shigeru Ban, the architect behind the designs. You can see how it works her...
Read more

Bill Gates says the world would need as many as 14 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine to stop the virus

* The world could need as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Bill Gates said on Thursday in a blog post about the race to develop a way to make people immune to the disease. * "We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible," Gates said. * Gates said he had his eyes on eight to 10 promising candidates, adding that healthcare workers and people in low-income countries should be first in line once we find one that works. * While potential vaccines are progressing with historic speed, they're still months, or even years away, and the biggest challenge lies ahead in proving whether they are safe and effective in humans. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Bill Gates believes we may eventually need to produce as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines globally and that we're anywhere from nine months to two years away from making tha...
Read more

Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck London fintech Lanistar used to raise $19 million at a $190 million valuation

* London-based fintech startup Lanistar has raised a £15 million ($19 million) funding round from Milaya Capital.  * Founded in 2019, Lanistar is building a personal financial management platform that will launch later in 2020.  * "We're expecting a huge amount of growth upon our launch and have already seen strong interest among our sign ups," Gurhan Kiziloz, founder and CEO of Lanistar, told Business Insider. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.  The coronavirus lockdown in the UK has brought the importance of managing money into sharp relief. A recent study from Money.com shows that 71% of UK households have saved cash during lockdown, and, with uncertainty about jobs and the economy looming, money management is now front of mind for many. Lanistar, a banking platform with a focus on personal finance, is one company offering tools for consumers to better manage their money. It has just raised a £15 million ($19 million) funding round from Mil...
Read more