This week, Maybell Quantum, a Denver-based quantum computing hardware startup backed by a grant from Colorado’s Advanced Industries Accelerator (AIA) venture fund and with support from the U.S. Department of Defense‘s National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) initiative, unveiled its Icebox, a modular cryogenic refrigerator for quantum computers.
Maybell says Icebox solves a number of pressing challenges for scaling quantum computing, the emergent subfield of computing enabling super-high-speed calculations at several orders of magnitude faster than today’s supercomputers, with the potential to dramatically reshape fields from logistics and agriculture to medicine and climate change. But achieving reliable quantum computation requires qubits – the fundamental building block of quantum computing – be in a state where they can be finely manipulated and communicated with through minute signals. Maybell’s technology – which is the only American-built and scalable solution in a sector dominated by international firms– has already attracted contracts from U.S. defense innovation agency DARPA, NSIC (which is housed under the DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit), and leading research universities. The company is now making it available to the quantum computing industry.
“Controlling quantum devices at room-temperature is like playing a sonata in a hurricane,” said Maybell CEO Corban Tillemann-Dick. “Cooling devices to a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, nature’s ‘speed limit for cold,’ calms this chaos to near ‘quantum silence’ so quantum operations are controllable.”
Traditional quantum cryogenic systems are tangles of tubes and wires that cover hundreds of square feet and often require months to set up and PhDs to operate. Moreover, to increase capacity, these systems typically become even larger and more complex.
By contrast, Maybell says, its Icebox dilution refrigerator condenses a room-sized cryogenic setup into a system slightly larger than your kitchen refrigerator. It can be installed in any laboratory, server-room, or well-equipped garage in an afternoon and without infrastructure upgrades. This is accomplished through over a dozen patent-pending innovations, including Maybell Flexlines, quantum wires which offer industry-leading performance and density while transmitting far less heat and vibration (‘quantum noise’) than traditional cabling. All this is paired with streamlined, secure, open-source software and a suite of powerful user-focused features.
“The Icebox supports three times more qubits in one-tenth the space,” said Maybell CEO Dr. Kyle Thompson, referencing the 4,500 superconducting Flexline traces available in an Icebox. “We listen to our customers, understand their needs, and address them. Many Icebox innovations are groundbreaking science, but some are just common sense. For example, the Icebox is the first system built with a door so you can access your qubits without taking it apart – that shouldn’t have taken 40 years.”
The technology is drawing plaudits from academia and business alike.
“Labs like mine, at the cutting edge of quantum research, have a critical need for high quality, smaller footprint cryogenic systems. That’s what Maybell is building. It lets us do more research more quickly and accelerate our contributions to Quantum Sciences,” said Professor Javad Shabani of the Shabani Lab for Quantum Materials & Devices at New York University.
“Maybell is reinventing quantum cryogenics for the first time since the 1980,” said Dan Caruso, investor and former CEO of ColdQuanta. “It is a game changer for America’s leadership in quantum hardware, and for scalable quantum globally.”
“I have extensive experience with competitive offerings, and Maybell’s focus on human-centered design, simplicity, and reliability will be a groundbreaking change,” added Dr. SaeWoo Nam, Group Leader at the National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST). “Advancement of domestic quantum sciences is hindered by the size, cost, and lack of domestic suppliers for quantum enabling hardware. Maybell’s products will help accelerate quantum progress and promote US leadership and security.”
