Imagine a world where computers harness the quirks of light to solve the toughest problems at blazing speeds. That future just moved closer as China's first factory dedicated to photonic quantum computers has broken ground in Shenzhen, in south Guangdong Province on the Chinese mainland.
Operated by QBoson, a pioneering quantum computing firm based in Beijing, the new facility is set to churn out dozens of light-based machines each year. This leap into manufacturing marks a shift from laboratory experiments to real-world production, building mass-production capacity for specialized quantum systems.
"Quantum computing carries a massive information capacity and ultra-strong parallel processing power, allowing an exponential acceleration in solving certain computationally difficult problems," says Wen Kai, founder of QBoson. "Photonic quantum computing is a technology that leverages the quantum properties of light for computation and is considered a mainstream quantum computing approach."
Unlike other quantum platforms, photonic systems don’t need ultra-low temperatures. They offer high qubit counts, room-temperature operation, and long coherence times, making them a promising candidate for scaling up quantum hardware.
The facility will span three core divisions: module development, full-system production, and quality control and testing. Construction is already under way, with specialized equipment due to arrive by the end of October.
As the quantum race heats up, this factory could accelerate breakthroughs in areas from drug discovery to climate modeling, underscoring how the Chinese mainland is moving into a new era of cutting-edge tech manufacturing.
Reference(s):
China begins construction on first photonic quantum computer factory
cgtn.com
