Riverlane, a global leader in quantum error correction technology, has been awarded a £2.1m grant by Horizon Europe.

The funding will be used to develop the next generation of Riverlane’s quantum error correction decoder. The prototype will be implemented on an FPGA and integrated into a quantum control system provided by Dutch quantum computing company, Qblox. The goal is to create a decoder capable of supporting real-time decoding of quantum operations, a crucial step towards achieving quantum advantage. Riverlane’s CEO, Steve Brierley, and QBlox’s CEO, Niels Bultink, expressed their excitement about the collaboration and the potential advancements in quantum computing.

Riverlane Receives £2.1m Grant for Quantum Error Correction Decoder Development

Riverlane, a company specializing in quantum error correction technology, has been awarded a £2.1m European Innovation Council (EIC) Transition grant. The grant, funded by Horizon Europe and supported by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT), will be used to further develop Riverlane’s quantum error decoder. This technology is essential for the real-time decoding of quantum operations, a critical step towards achieving quantum advantage.

The grant was awarded after a competitive selection process, with Riverlane being one of 27 recipients and the only UK-based company selected. This award brings Riverlane’s total funding to £55m, which includes previous investments from venture capital firms and government-backed grants.

Enhancing Quantum Error Correction Technology

The grant will be used to enhance Riverlane’s patented decoding technology. The prototype will extend the core functionalities to support streaming and adaptive decoding during a logical quantum operation. The prototype will be implemented on an FPGA and integrated into a quantum control system provided by Dutch quantum computing company, Qblox. This integration ensures compatibility with existing solutions in different layers of a quantum computing system.

Quantum error correction has transitioned from theory to practice in recent years, with several landmark experiments demonstrating effective quantum error correction offline in software. However, for quantum computers to scale to millions and ultimately trillions of reliable operations, decoders that can detect and correct errors in real-time are needed.

The Challenge of Real-Time Decoding

Quantum computers generate a vast amount of data, requiring real-time processing to correct the inherent errors these machines encounter. Previous decoding approaches cannot keep up with this volume of data, creating a backlog problem that slows down and eventually stops the computation. Sophisticated decoders are needed to process this data in real-time, identify the underlying errors, and issue corrective measures.

To address this challenge, Riverlane has developed ‘Deltaflow.Decode’, a core layer to their comprehensive ‘Quantum Error Correction Stack’. Deltaflow.Decode originated from the QuantERA ‘Quantum Code Design and Architecture’ project in 2018, coordinated by Riverlane’s VP of Quantum Science, Dr. Earl Campbell. The EIC-funded project aims to build more sophisticated functionality capable of continuously decoding the errors that today’s quantum computers produce.

A World-Class Team for Quantum Advancement

Achieving this milestone requires pushing the boundaries of quantum science and chip-making. Riverlane has assembled a team of quantum researchers, hardware engineers, and chip designers with experience leading large-scale projects at companies like Microsoft, ARM, and Amazon Braket. Their work has led to the launch of the world’s most powerful quantum decoder and the development of over 50 active patents, including 18 related to quantum error correction.

About Riverlane

Riverlane’s mission is to make quantum computing useful sooner, which they believe will transform the future of computing and start an era of human progress as significant as the digital and industrial revolutions. Achieving this requires a 10,000x reduction in the system errors that quickly overwhelm all quantum computers today. Riverlane is building Deltaflow, the Quantum Error Correction (QEC) Stack, that solves this problem in all quantum computers using every type of qubit. At Deltaflow’s core is the world’s most powerful quantum error decoder, powered by a new class of patented QEC semiconductors designed and built by Riverlane.