MSU researcher-led company working to bring quantum computers into reality
Johannes Pollanen and his start up, EeroQ, set out to revolutionize information by bringing quantum computers into reality.
Johannes Pollanen didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. Originally a physicist studying superfluids, Pollanen first turned his attention to quantum computing over a decade ago at Caltech. Building a marketable quantum computer wasn’t on his radar. But an old friend from the board of directors of his wife’s theater company changed that.
“He was like, you've been doing all this quantum stuff, it seems like there's a thing there. And he said, ‘Maybe we should try to spin that out,’” recalled Pollanen, now an associate professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Michigan State University.
That friend was Nick Farina, a “serial entrepreneur” with a perpetual curiosity, Pollanen said. The more Farina learned about Pollanen’s work on quantum computing — a field that aims to solve complex problems with quantum mechanics — the more interested he became. In 2017, he and Pollanen decided to found a quantum computer startup, EeroQ.
Farina and the Michigan State University Research Foundation were among the company’s early investors. The Research Foundation also offered support for the startup as it navigated its post-launch phase, including regular calls to discuss resources and opportunities for potential collaboration. It aims to help MSU scientists bring their tech ideas into the business sphere, from the broad, early stages of planning to the nuts and bolts of building the business and securing funding.
“We were able to participate in some early funding with EeroQ and help them create a stronger relationship with the university ecosystem,” said Brad Fingland, the Director of Venture Creation at MSU Research Foundation.
Quantum computers are similar to classical computers in that they rely on a circuit to receive an input of information, process it and turn it into an output. That operation is the foundation of all algorithms, which can be built upon each other to create more complicated computations and processes. Classical computers ‘read’ inputs and outputs using a binary code of 0 and 1. But the allure of a quantum computer — and where it differs greatly from a classical one — is that it can read inputs of 0, 1 and the states when 0 and 1 overlap, called a superposition.
“The thing about quantum computing that's beneficial is those inputs don't have to be binary values. They can be these superposition states,” Pollanen said. “They can hold on to more information while the algorithm is actually running than if you just had the two binary inputs.”
Because of their superposition literacy, quantum computers can run complex algorithms more efficiently than classical computers. For example, some programs currently require supercomputers to run, which can take up several rooms worth of space. A quantum computer could run the same program on a smaller footprint, around the size of just one room . Drug discovery is one such field that is computation-intensive because it operates on modeling and simulating molecular interactions. Quantum computers have the potential to improve the accuracy and efficiency of those computations, enabling researchers to develop novel treatments faster.
To do that, the computers rely on quantum mechanics — a field built on subatomic particles and their behaviors. The particles that EeroQ centers on are single electrons and their magnetism. In its processor, an electron sits above a layer of liquid helium. Below that is a circuit. The electron’s magnetic orientation is equivalent to the 0 or 1 of binary. That orientation changes depending on inputs from the circuit, which are communicated using voltage. The set up is something that no other companies are currently attempting , Pollanen said.
“Each electron looks like a little magnet,” he explained. “The north pole can point up or can point down. And you can imagine that if you point it up, that looks like a one, and if you point it down, that looks like a zero.” The positions in between are the superpositions.
Because the computers must be kept in super cold, pristine conditions, they’re unlikely to ever power a laptop. But people can tap into the computer’s power using an interface, which Pollanen hopes to one day have available through the cloud. He and other quantum computer developers are also working on bringing the computers up to scale. Current models are toy-sized and can only do simple computations, Pollanen said. However, EeroQ has had scalability in mind from the beginning, using chip fabrication techniques that are already used in classical computers.
“If we, or the field in general, can build a large-scale quantum computer, it'll be one of those things that people write history books about,” Pollanen said. “That'll change humanity's approach to information processing, and that's incredibly exciting.”
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