This morning, Maybell Quantum unveiled the Icebox, a cryogenic platform to power the next generation of quantum computers. Maybell’s Icebox solves several pressing challenges for scaling quantum. Quantum computing is a reinvention of computing. It will perform calculations in seconds that would require billions of years for today’s most powerful supercomputers, with profound implications for everything from logistics and agriculture to medicine and climate change. But achieving reliable quantum computation requires qubits – quantum computers’ fundamental building block – be in a state where they can be finely manipulated and communicated with through minute signals. Maybell’s approach to these challenges has attracted contracts from DARPA, NSIC/DIU, and leading research universities, and is now available to the quantum computing industry.
“Controlling quantum devices at room-temperature is like playing a sonata in a hurricane,” explains Corban Tillemann-Dick, Maybell’s CEO. “Cooling devices to a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, nature’s ‘speed limit for cold,’ calms this chaos to near ‘quantum silence’ so quantum operations are controllable.” Traditional quantum cryogenic systems, however, are tangles of tubes and wires that cover hundreds of square feet and often require months to set up and PhDs to operate. Moreover, to increase capacity, these systems typically become even larger and more complex.
In contrast, Maybell’s Icebox dilution refrigerator condenses a room-sized cryogenic setup into a system slightly larger than your kitchen refrigerator. It can be installed in any laboratory, server-room, or well-equipped garage in an afternoon and without infrastructure upgrades. This is accomplished through over a dozen patent-pending innovations, including Maybell Flexlines, quantum wires which offer industry-leading performance and density while transmitting far less heat and vibration (‘quantum noise’) than traditional cabling. All this is paired with streamlined, secure, open-source software and a suite of powerful user-focused features.
“The Icebox supports three times more qubits in one-tenth the space,” says Dr. Kyle Thompson, Maybell’s CTO, referencing the 4,500 superconducting Flexline traces available in an Icebox. “We listen to our customers, understand their needs, and address them. Many Icebox innovations are groundbreaking science, but some are just common sense. For example, the Icebox is the first system built with a door so you can access your qubits without taking it apart – that shouldn’t have taken 40 years.”
Professor Javad Shabani of the Shabani Lab for Quantum Materials & Devices at NYU sees direct applications. “Labs like mine, at the cutting edge of quantum research, have a critical need for high quality, smaller footprint cryogenic systems. That’s what Maybell is building. It lets us do more research more quickly and accelerate our contributions to Quantum Sciences.” Dan Caruso, investor and former CEO of ColdQuanta, echoes his sentiment. “Maybell is reinventing quantum cryogenics for the first time since the 1980s. It is a game changer for America’s leadership in quantum hardware, and for scalable quantum globally.”
Dr. Thompson, continues “after decades designing, building, and – all-too-often – repairing broken quantum hardware, we knew Maybell could offer something better,” Dr. SaeWoo Nam, Group Leader at the National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST), agrees. “I have extensive experience with competitive offerings, and Maybell’s focus on human-centered design, simplicity, and reliability will be a groundbreaking change.”
Quantum will be as important to the next 60 years of technology as the internet or integrated circuits were to the last 60. Maybell is the only American-built and scalable solution for this internationally-dominated sector. “Advancement of domestic quantum sciences is hindered by the size, cost, and lack of domestic suppliers for quantum enabling hardware. Maybell’s products will help accelerate quantum progress and promote US leadership and security,” states Dr. Nam, an even more pressing risk with global supply chain disruptions and international turmoil.
Maybell has opened the door to a new era of scientific discovery by enabling scalable quantum computing.
Source: Maybell Quantum
