Espoo, outside Helsinki, is becoming a true quantum hub. The city's newest addition to the Finnish quantum computing ecosystem is QMill.
The young algorithm startup has just raised 4 million euros in seed capital to develop hardware in the short term and bring real benefits to the industry through quantum computing.
“The momentum is currently growing [in quantum]and investors can see that many companies are now experimenting with quantum computers – but so far they have not found a quantum advantage,” Hannu DealerCo-founder and CEO of QMill, told TNW. “We're the ones who are going to be the first to offer that to them.”
Quantum advantage refers to the point at which a quantum computer can solve a problem faster or more efficiently than classical high-performance computers. Reaching this milestone will also unlock enormous value in many industries.
The problem is that despite significant progress, quantum computers are still stuck in the so-called NISQ (Noisy-Intermediate Scale Quantum) era. These machines are prone to errors, especially when trying to scale and control larger numbers of qubits.
Thus, the potential of this technology and its commercial benefits remain untapped – unless the algorithms can be sufficiently optimized to run on short-term systems.
Mikko Möttönen, one of QMill's other co-founders and its chief scientist, has been working in the field of quantum hardware for about 20 years. He says he has seen significant progress in the past five years and that it is only “a matter of time” before we have a full-fledged quantum computer with error correction.
“But right now, nobody knows how to use today's machines, or the machines that will exist in the next 10 years, for meaningful purposes – for purposes that companies can benefit from,” Möttönen added. “What we are doing is using the hardware of the near future for a quantum advantage.”
Founding team comes from the Finnish quantum community
The financing round was led by Finland-based Maki.vc and Antler were joined by industrial technology investor Kvanted.
The funds will flow into the development of QMill’s highly resource-efficient quantum algorithms. These are suitable for applications that require up to 300 physical qubits to solve optimization problems for industries such as Finance, telecommunications, real estate, energy and supply chain logistics.
“QMill has identified a great opportunity to take advantage of the current, noisy mid-scale quantum era, rather than waiting for the quantum computing ecosystem to evolve over the next decade,” said Pirkka Palomäki, partner at Maki.vc, adding that the investment was driven by the “exceptional quality” of the QMill team.
Indeed, the CVs of the QMill founders are impressive. QMill is the brainchild of Möttönen, Professor of Quantum Technology at Aalto University and VTT; Dealerwho is the former Chief Technology Officer of Nokia Technologies; Ville Kotovirta, former head of VTT's quantum algorithms and software team; and Toni Annala, LE Dickson Lecturer at the University of Chicago.
The founding team of QMill has an impressive resume. Image credit: QMill
The company currently has 10 employees on its team and now plans to use the newly raised funds to hire 20 more. “We are hiring quantum physicists, mathematicians, but also people who have expertise in computer science, machine learning and computer simulations,” said Dealer.
Many of these talents can be found in Finland, a country that has traditionally done an excellent job of supporting and promoting its deep-tech industry. QMill has also received a EUR 1 million grant from Business Finland, the Finnish Ministry of Labour and the Business Innovation, Trade and Investment Promotion Department.
“It is also important that Business Finland helps to organize a community of companies and research groups here,” Dealer he said. “Because we have a tradition of working together in a pre-competitive mode and joining forces. We are not competing with each other, but we plan to build an industry here and export from Finland.”
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