The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced it will work with Microsoft and PsiQuantum in the validation and co-design stage of the companies’ concepts on a utility-scale quantum supercomputer. 

According to Joe Altepeter, DARPA’s quantum benchmarking program manager, the agency’s evaluation team has been scrutinizing the companies’ approaches since 2023 when they were selected to develop prototypes for the DARPA program Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing, or US2QC, program. 

“Now, we’re ready to evaluate their final utility-scale system designs, conduct government testing of components and hardware, and assess system-level performance capabilities of major prototypes,” Altepeter said.

Different Qubits Approaches

Both designed as error-corrected, the Microsoft and PsiQuantum utility-scale quantum computer prototypes differ in their approaches. Microsoft’s concept is based on topological qubits, while PsiQuantum’s proposal anchors on photonic qubits.

The two prototypes advanced to the validation and co-design stage after more than 50 professionals in DARPA’s test and evaluation team checked the companies’ technical approaches on fault-tolerant computing and long-term plans on R&D, architectures, systems development components and application utility.

US2QC is part of DARPA’s larger Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, both with the final goal of validating and co-designing an industrially useful quantum computer. As part of the initiative, DARPA researchers released in June pre-prints of the initial results of their effort to develop scientifically rigorous metrics that can be used to measure the impact of quantum computers on key computational challenges.

Startup firms Mistral and Zoltix have won the U.S.-Singapore joint challenge on maritime and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, defense innovation. 

The event was the first collaboration between the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit and Singapore’s Ministry of Defence under a memorandum of understanding for defense innovation.

Challenge Winners

The first prize challenge involved identifying and scaling dual-use technologies to help ships stationed near the shore continuously detect, track, identify and disrupt unauthorized drones. Mistral won $80,000 for its counter-UAS Victus C2 Gateway offering.

The system features radio frequency sensors and kinetic and non-kinetic effects in a single package that meets the challenge’s operational requirements. 

The Minstral technology is capable of integrating with existing defense systems, which ensures compatibility with operational tools and prevents the creation of proprietary silos.

The second prize challenge, won by Zoltix, required resilient communications with small commercial drones during humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or HADR, missions. 

The startup received $70,000 for its adaptive communication system that features radio operations via automatic sensing and self-adjustment and delivers spectrum activity insights.

The Zoltix technology allows small commercial drones to keep secure and stable connections amid RF-contested environments and dynamically sense and adjust frequencies. These capabilities make it critical to HADR missions and global navigation satellite system-challenged environments.