Cisco unveils Quantum chip, to open quantum lab
May 07, 2025 6:10 AM ET
By: Ravikash Bakolia, SA News Editor
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) unveiled a quantum chip and will open a quantum lab.
Cisco said it is creating a quantum networking technology that will be the foundation for the quantum internet, making quantum computing practical years ahead of current timelines.
"Our approach could accelerate impactful quantum computing and networking applications from decades away to just 5-10 years," said Vijoy Pandey, senior vice president, Outshift by Cisco, in a blog post on Tuesday.
The company introduced the Cisco’s Quantum Network Entanglement Chip, a research prototype and breakthrough technology that enables quantum networks to scale and connect quantum processors for practical applications, according to the company.
The prototype chip was developed in collaboration with UC Santa Barbara.
Cisco said its entanglement chip stands out because — it works with existing infrastructure; functions at room temperature as a miniaturized Photonic Integrated Chip, or PIC, making it suitable for scalable system deployment today.
The chip is also energy efficient as it consumes less than 1mW of power; and has high performance as there are 1 million high-fidelity entanglement pairs per output channel, with a rate of up to 200 million entanglement pairs per second in chip, according to the company.
The company is opening the Cisco Quantum Labs — its dedicated research lab in Santa Monica, California, where quantum scientists and engineers are building quantum networking technologies.
Besides the entanglement chip, Cisco said it is using the lab to advance research prototypes of other critical components to complete its vision of the quantum networking stack, including entanglement distribution protocols, a distributed quantum computing compiler, Quantum Network Development Kit, or QNDK, and a Quantum Random Number Generator, or QRNG, using quantum vacuum noise.
Similar to the AI race, competition in the quantum computing space is also heating up.
Last year in December, Alphabet's ( GOOG) ( GOOGL) Google unveiled what it called a "mind-boggling" quantum computing chip known as Willow.
Microsoft ( MSFT) was not far behind, and in February, the Copilot AI maker introduced a new type of quantum chip, built with what it calls a topological superconductor, which is not a solid, liquid or gas, but an entirely new state of matter. The new chip is called Majorana 1.
Amazon ( AMZN) is also in the race, as in November last year, Amazon Web Services announced its Quantum Embark Program.
AI giant Nvidia ( NVDA) hosted its first-ever Quantum Day at its annual GTC event in March. Nvidia said it will open a quantum computing research lab in Boston, and it is expected to start operations later this year. The Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center, or NVAQC, will integrate leading quantum hardware with AI supercomputers, enabling what is known as accelerated quantum supercomputing. |
