Toshiba opens quantum computing lab in Cambridge

Tech manufacturer Toshiba has opened doors to its Quantum Technology Centre, a commercial offshoot from the Toshiba Cambridge Research Laboratory in Cambridge Science Park.

It represents a £20 million investment from Toshiba into the development of quantum-secure networking products and will initially create over 30 new jobs ranging from business development to production.

The hub is a commercialised business operating under Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation, and will be tasked with commercialising Toshiba’s quantum-secure networking technologies and manufacture initial products such as its Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) system.

It will also chip in with the development of other quantum-based technologies such as chip-based QKD, which will apparently be ‘instrumental’ in supporting the mass-market adoption of QKD, and twin-field QKD, which could facilitate quantum-secure links spanning over 500km.

“Following more than 30 years of groundbreaking work in the UK, we are delighted to be opening the Quantum Technology Centre in Cambridge as our next step in further developing and commercialising quantum-secure communications technologies,” said Shunsuke Okada, Executive Officer and Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, Toshiba Corporation President and CEO, Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation. “This investment reflects the strategic importance of these technologies, not only to Toshiba, but in delivering a quantum-secure economy for the wider world, and we look forward to working with more customers and partners to enable this economy.”

Lord Dominic Johnson, Minister of Investment in the Department for Business and Trade for the UK Government, who attended the opening ceremony added: “We have a clear mission to cement the UK’s status as a Science and Technology ‘Superpower’ by 2030, and last year the UK became just the third country in the world to have a tech sector valued at $1 trillion, with UK investment in Quantum startups accounting for over 14% of total global investments in the past 10 years.

“Toshiba’s new Quantum Technology Centre will play a key part of the wider quantum technology ecosystem operating in the UK, and is testament to the thriving tech sector we have here in the UK and the ever increasing investment flowing into technologies like quantum which will play such a crucial role in our future.”

Quantum computing is widely regarded as the next stage in supercomputing and a number of firms within the telecoms industry are making moves to be involved in the technology. In July, German incumbent Deutsche Telekom’s IT arm, T-Systems, signed a deal with IQM Quantum Computers to allow it to offer its customers cloud access to quantum systems, while BT struck a deal with HSBC to supply it with a quantum secure metro network.

Meanwhile in China, China Telecom has reportedly dropped 3 billion yuan ($434 million) to set up its own quantum computing unit in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui.

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