SEEQC UK receives €7.99M grant from Innovate UK to build quantum enhanced computer for pharmaceutical R&D

New York-based SEEQC, a semiconductor company developing commercially viable application-specific quantum computing systems for global businesses, announced that its UK-based team has been awarded a £6.85M (approx €7.99M) grant from Innovate UK.

The funding was made available by Innovate UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF).

With the new capital, the SEEQC-led consortium will build a commercially scalable application-specific quantum computer for pharmaceutical drug development for Germany headquartered American pharmaceutical company Merck.

Role of Merck in this fundraise

Merck, which invested through its strategic corporate VC arm M Ventures, plans to use SEEQC’s quantum computing platform to advance its R&D in next-gen pharmaceutical therapies and material science.

According to a statement, the partnership between the two companies will accelerate the use of quantum computing within pharmaceutical research to reduce the time required for drug development on a global scale benefitting from working with the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), also in the consortium.

John Levy, co-founder, and CEO of SEEQC, says, “We see this project as a major milestone in the commercialisation of quantum computing for meaningful enterprise applications like pharmaceutical development. I’m encouraged by the fact that so many global firms are willing and able to collaborate to further the advancement of quantum technology and provide real-world value to businesses.”

The first digital quantum computing platform

SEEQC is a spin-out of HYPRES, a developer of superconductor electronics, and was founded by John Levy, Matthew Hutchings, and Oleg Mukhanov in 2018. It is a semiconductor company developing commercially viable application-specific quantum computing systems for businesses.

The company combines classical and quantum technologies to address the efficiency, stability, and cost issues endemic to quantum computing systems. It integrates superconducting qubit chips, proprietary Single FluxQuantum (SFQ), SFQ-based 10-40 GHz superconductive classical co-processors, and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

SEEQC quantum system provides the energy- and cost-efficiency, speed, and digital control required to make quantum computing useful and bring commercially-scalable, problem-specific quantum computing applications to market.

The company claims to be one of the first to have built a superconductor multi-layer commercial chip foundry and has the infrastructure in place for design, testing, and manufacturing of quantum-ready superconductors through this experience. 

The ISCF QuPharma project

SEEQC leads a consortium of quantum computing partners for the ISCF QuPharma project including Riverlane, Oxford Instruments, the University of Oxford, Medicines Discovery Catapult, and members from the Science and Technology Facilities Council, including the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre.

The program is focused on developing high-value simulation tools to support photodynamic therapies for cancer treatment. In the current market, useful simulations of photosensitising drugs are not possible with classical computing power alone. SEEQC’s project will develop an application-specific quantum computer designed to simulate the most classically challenging tasks within this research.

The project also marks the first time a quantum computer has been integrated with a high-performance computer in the same network infrastructure.

A scalable quantum computer

In the next 18 months, SEEQC’s quantum computer will perform a quantum simulation designed to support core elements of this use case on its full-stack platform and demonstrate a clear route to commercial scalability towards simulations of drugs for photodynamic cancer therapies.

Merck will benchmark the performance of this application-specific machine and determine its commercial viability to support its global R&D efforts.

Philipp Harbach, head of silico research at Merck, says, “We are excited to work with our partners in the consortium to create tangible value with the implementation of quantum computing technology in drug development. The application-specific development of a scalable quantum computer has the potential to disrupt virtual drug discovery approaches and we are looking forward to being an early adaptor.”

Additional Innovate UK grant wins

SEEQC’s UK team was awarded two additional grants from Innovate UK’s £36M (approx €41.99M) ISCF project funding round that will develop key components to support the project.

The first project, a £6.8M (approx €7.93M) initiative led by Riverlane, will develop advanced quantum calibration methods that utilise machine learning and support the integration of SEEQC’s superconducting classical logic platform with cryoCMOS components to support deep memory.

The second project, a £6.5M (approx €7.58M) initiative led by sureCore, will also support the integration of SEEQC’s platform with cryoCMOS components, combining the optimal features of each component in support of the company’s platform development.

Combined, these projects awarded SEEQC and its partners a total of over £20M (approx €23.32M) from Innovate UK’s Commercialising Quantum Technologies: CRD & Tech round 2 funding.