Equal1, the Irish quantum computing company that was spun out from University College Dublin (UCD), is set to make history on Monday as it unveils the world’s first silicon-based quantum server at a conference attended by about 15,000 physicists in California.
The company, which is backed by specialist technology investor Atlantic Bridge and Enterprise Ireland, among others, has developed the technology using the same semiconductor processes that power microchips.
However, the server – named Bell-1 after Belfast-born physicist John Stewart Bell – has significantly lower power usage than other quantum machines and can be plugged into a standard electrical socket, according to the company.
Bell-1 will be unveiled on Monday at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit 2025 in Anaheim, California.
Speaking to The Irish Times on Sunday, Equal1 chief executive Jason Lynch said the demonstration will be “the first proof point” the approach Equal1 is taking to solve one of quantum computing’s biggest problems “is the one that’s really going to scale” and deliver the technology.
“We started the company with the thesis that we needed to kind of build on technology that was existing today in order to accelerate adoption,” he said. “Because if we had to go off and build new manufacturing processes, build new semiconductor lines, that would take decades.”
Instead, the company, which employs 46 people globally, including about 20 in Ireland, relies on the “fabless” or fabrication-free model, meaning it has partners who make the “chip part of the device” and other components, Lynch said. Those parts are then integrated into the server device.
Mr Lynch said the unveiling of Bell-1 this week will mark “the first time a machine will be running real, live quantum experiments in real time on the floor of a show”.
He said the company is expected to take its first orders and ship its first product for use in data centres and high-performance computing environments in the next few months.
Shares in semiconductor companies have fallen in recent weeks as the industry finds itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s trade policy. Mr Trump said earlier this month that he was still considering placing 25 per cent tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors as a means of boosting the US chip industry.
Mr Lynch said the EU recognises quantum computing as a critical technology and Equal1 is a “Europe-centred company” with a strongly European supply chain. He said: “We don’t know how things are going to go or in what direction [at the geopolitical level]. But we see ourselves as a strong European contributor to the [quantum computing] story.”
