No one in industry nor academia has yet managed to demonstrate a commercially useful quantum computing application. Nonetheless, public and private entities continue to invest billions of dollars into developing quantum applications with hopes of major returns. Some analysts project that the technology could generate $1 trillion by 2035.
Amid this speculation, a group of physicists believe that they can cut through the hype with an open-source quantum computer. Roger Melko, Crystal Senko, and Rajibul Islam of the University of Waterloo in Canada teamed up with Greg Dick, formerly an executive at Perimeter Institute, also in Canada, to found a nonprofit called Open Quantum Design (OQD) in 2024. The company consists of quantum developers from academia and industry who pay a membership fee to participate in project-specific working groups. Other funding comes from the Canadian government and philanthropic organizations.
OQD’s flagship project is a collaboration with the University of Waterloo to build an open-source, 30-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer. The team aims to demonstrate quantum algorithms in about a year. But unlike commercial ventures, the plan is to give away all the intellectual property—circuit designs, CAD models, optical layouts, and more—needed to recreate that hardware and the software that controls it.
Senko and Dick spoke to Physics Magazine about OQD’s efforts to build transparency into quantum computing.
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