Ulm, 16 July 2024

QC Design, a leader in quantum design automation software, has been selected for the prestigious Accelerator program by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to support the development of its design-automation software and architectures for quantum computing.

QC Design’s quantum design-automation software, Plaquette, helps hardware manufacturers develop the most efficient logical qubits and architectures for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Fault tolerance means that we can design quantum circuits to be reliable despite inevitable imperfections in the quantum bits (qubits) and gates. In fault-tolerant quantum computers, the reliable ‘logical’ qubits and gates that run the user’s algorithm in turn comprise a large number of noisy ‘physical’ qubits and gates. 

“Our mission at QC Design is to support quantum hardware manufacturers towards scalable and reliable quantum computing. The EIC funding accelerates the development of our design-automation tools for our customers building fault-tolerant quantum computers across all hardware platforms” said Ish Dhand, CEO and co-founder of QC Design.

The EIC Accelerator is the top deep-tech funding program in Europe. In the first call for this year, out of 969 full proposals submitted, QC Design emerged as one of the winners among the 68 selected in a highly competitive process with a 7% success rate. The Accelerator program provides the company with €2.5 million in the form of a grant, combined with up to €1.5 million in equity investments for their Seed round. 

This support is particularly timely given that fault-tolerance is rapidly becoming a key focus for quantum hardware teams. Prof. Martin B. Plenio, scientific founder and co-founder of QC Design said “Quantum computing is maturing to a point where fault tolerance design-automation tools are crucial for continued progress, much like electronic design-automation software contributed to the advancement of the semiconductor industry”.

“Thanks to its incredible team and product, QC Design has the potential to become a European and global champion in quantum design automation,” says Olivier Tonneau, Partner at Quantonation Ventures and board observer at QC Design. According to Dr. Lise Rechsteiner, General Partner at VSquared Ventures and board member at QC Design “QC Design’s continuous advancements are already unlocking tremendous value for its first customers and will likely do so for the entire quantum computing industry”.

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