Horizon Quantum Computing Pte. (NASDAQ:HQ) is positioning itself as a software-focused company in the quantum computing sector, aiming to build a hardware-agnostic development environment that can help developers write code for multiple types of quantum computers, Chairman and CEO Dr. Joseph Fitzsimons said during a Canaccord Genuity event.
The session was hosted by Kingsley Crane, technology analyst at Canaccord Genuity, who said the timing of the discussion was notable given recent progress in quantum error correction and increased government investment in the sector. Crane said the U.S. Department of Commerce announced $2 billion in awards to nine quantum companies, adding that sovereign capital is “flowing in at scale.”
Crane described Horizon Quantum as “more of a pure software play,” noting that the company completed its merger with dMY Squared in March and has traded on Nasdaq under the ticker HQ since March 20.
Horizon Focuses on Quantum Software Layer
Fitzsimons said Horizon Quantum is working to create software that enables quantum computers to solve meaningful problems, rather than focusing on building quantum hardware. He said quantum computers, like conventional computers, need software to perform useful work.
“It’s not enough to simply have a number of well-controlled qubits,” Fitzsimons said. “You actually need to decide what you want to do with them to turn that to solve a particular problem.”
He said Horizon’s goal is to create a path toward the “automatic acceleration” of code written for conventional computers. The company is targeting industries such as finance, pharmaceuticals, machine learning, energy, aerospace and defense, where domain experts may not be quantum computing specialists.
Fitzsimons said quantum computers’ key advantage is their ability to exploit quantum interference, but he added that humans do not have natural intuition for using that capability. Horizon is trying to automate the construction of quantum algorithms from conventional code, he said.
Software Investment Has Lagged Hardware, CEO Says
Asked whether software has been underprioritized in quantum computing, Fitzsimons said “yes, absolutely.” He said the hardware side has attracted attention because it is physics-intensive and requires specialized systems that cannot be replicated by conventional computers beyond limited simulations.
But he argued that the software challenge is also significant. Horizon is attempting to build parts of the software infrastructure that conventional computing developed over decades, including programming languages, compilation tools and system-level capabilities.
“We have to do 80 years of work in eight years,” Fitzsimons said.
He said Horizon’s science team is twice as large as its engineering team, reflecting the technical research challenges that remain on the software side.
Triple Alpha Aims to Bridge Current Hardware Limits
Fitzsimons said Horizon’s software stack is broader than existing systems in the quantum computing market. While many quantum programming frameworks have evolved by gradually exposing new hardware capabilities as they become available, he said Horizon is taking the opposite approach.
“We’re saying, how does a perfect quantum computer work? How do we program that ideal system? How do we get that code to run on today’s computers?” he said.
He said Horizon’s Triple Alpha platform is designed to support capabilities that many current-generation systems do not, including general control flow, indefinite loops, branching programs with indefinite runtime, mid-circuit measurement and classical computation based on those measurements.
Because current quantum hardware cannot always support those capabilities directly, Horizon sometimes stitches together multiple hardware runs through classical software to simulate the effect of a more advanced quantum computer. Fitzsimons said this increases the number of hardware calls but can give existing machines capabilities associated with more mature systems.
He also said Horizon is working on tighter integration with control electronics to reduce that overhead. The company operates a superconducting system in Singapore built from components, currently using a Rigetti processor and a Quantum Machines controller, he said.
Beryllium Adds Object-Oriented Programming
Fitzsimons discussed Horizon’s software roadmap, including Hydrogen, Helium and Beryllium. He described Hydrogen as a portable assembly language and Helium as an imperative language. Beryllium, previewed in December, is an object-oriented programming language.
He said Beryllium allows developers to mix classical and quantum data and define how that information is represented and manipulated. A developer could build a library for a data type such as a matrix or tensor, and another developer could import that library without needing to understand the underlying quantum mechanics.
Fitzsimons said that structure could make quantum programming more accessible to developers who are not quantum experts. He also said it creates a potential business advantage through code reuse and network effects, comparing the possible library ecosystem to Python’s role in conventional software development.
Hardware Test Beds Support Software Strategy
Although Horizon is not primarily a hardware company, Fitzsimons said the company has invested in hardware systems to support its software work. Crane noted that Horizon recently purchased one of IonQ’s 256-qubit systems for a multimodality test bed.
Fitzsimons said the IonQ system gives Horizon exposure to trapped ion technology, which he described as part of a broader category involving atoms and optics. He said the company also wanted experience with systems that have different operational and control requirements, including cold systems requiring microwave control and systems requiring high vacuum and optical stability.
He said the system could also be in the range where real quantum advantage is possible if error rates improve sufficiently, though he added that Horizon does not yet know whether the system will achieve that.
In closing, Fitzsimons emphasized Horizon’s software business model and said the company’s economics differ from those of hardware-focused quantum companies. He said Horizon aims to insulate developers from hardware technology risk by allowing them to write code in one language and run it on multiple machines.
“They don’t need to pick which hardware system is going to win,” Fitzsimons said.
About Horizon Quantum Computing Pte. (NASDAQ:HQ)
Horizon Quantum Holdings Ltd. is a quantum software infrastructure company focused on tools and systems that help developers build and deploy quantum applications. The company emphasizes software, algorithms, and workflow infrastructure intended to support practical quantum and hybrid quantum-classical use cases.
Horizon Quantum became a public company through its business combination with dMY Squared Technology Group, Inc (DMYY), which was formed to take a private company public through a business combination.
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