24 Jan 2025

The company, founded by former U of T post-doc Christian Weedbrook, announced the completion of its latest quantum computer

Xanadu Quantum Technologies, a startup founded by former University of Toronto post-doctoral researcher Christian Weedbrook, has reached another milestone on the road to building a commercial quantum computer, the Globe and Mail reported.

The Toronto-based company – which got its start at the Creative Destruction Lab  seed-stage accelerator at U of T’s Rotman School of Management – said it has successfully networked four independent server racks to complete the world's first modular, scalable and networked computer, called Aurora. 

“You can think of this as a very, very early baby data centre,” Weedbrook, Xanadu’s founder and CEO, told the Globe. “It only has four server racks, but what we could do today is actually scale this up to thousands.” 

The servers are photonically interconnected and networked together, “using particles of light to perform exceptionally fast and complex computations at room temperature quicker than traditional computers,” according to Betakit. 

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The Aurora computer comprises 35 of Xanadu's photonic chips like the one above, seen installed inside a computer