Fresh claims that Australia $1b quantum bet fell short of global standards
Different quantum technologies should have been put to the test before the Australian government's investment in PsiQuantum, according to a rival startup.
A leading Australian quantum computing startup has said the Albanese government fell short of international best practices in the manner it invested $940 million in PsiQuantum.
Quantum Brilliance co-founder Marcus Doherty said governments in the US, UK and Japan created “testbed” facilities that allowed them to trial competing quantum technologies before allocating funding, in contrast to the opaque process used in the PsiQuantum investment.
“The best practice that has been adopted globally … has been the construction of national quantum computing testbeds,” Doherty said. “This is the alternate model that we would have recommended to the government instead of the bet on PsiQuantum.”
As the name implies, testbeds allow researchers to trial developing quantum computing hardware and software. They’re used to benchmark and compare different approaches, Doherty said, and to develop a more diverse ecosystem of quantum computing tech.
