A leader in distributed quantum computing in silicon recently announced a scaling up of its executive leadership team.
Vancouver’s Photonic is building one of the first distributed, fault-tolerant, and unified quantum computing and networking platforms based on optically linked silicon spin qubits.
And now with more than 130 employees, Photonic boasts one of the world’s largest teams of quantum silicon experts and has curated an array of advisors and collaborators.
“Photonic has searched extensively for the right talent to help us achieve our ambitious goals,” says Dr. Paul Terry, Photonic chief executive officer.
Writing its next chapter of growth, the B.C. firm has appointed “industry forerunners” in the areas of research and development, materials science, quantum technologies, marketing, human resources, and legal.
“We are confident that, with these roles filled by such high-caliber people, and our ongoing scientific advisory team, we will further accelerate progress on our path to make distributed quantum computing a commercial reality,” Terry stated.
Dr. Chantal Arena joins Photonic as vice president of research, development, and production of devices with 35 years’ experience in business strategy, materials science, and semiconductor devices fabrication, as well as a doctorate in material science-physics from the Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble.
With 30 years of experience innovating semiconductor technology development, Dr. Klaus Schuegraf joins as vice president of research, development, and production of systems.
Quantum networking pioneer Dr. Thomas Jennewein—a Canada Excellence Research Chair and scientific lead for the Quantum EncrYption and Science Satellite—now serves as one of Photonic’s scientific fellows. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna, Austria.
Dr. Michael Thewalt will also serve as a scientific fellow at Photonic. The UBC-educated Thewalt, an emeritus professor at Simon Fraser University, cofounded Photonic alongside Stephanie Simmons.
Also onboard as a scientific fellow at Photonic is Dr. Artem Cherkasov, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design and professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia.
“The quantum industry is starting to recognize the need for distributed quantum capabilities,” stated Simmons, chief quantum officer of Photonic and co-chair of Canada’s National Quantum Strategy Advisory Board. “Photonic’s architecture is unique on this front, and it is exciting to have industry veterans and innovators recognize this potential and join the relentless pursuit of scalable, distributed, and fault-tolerant commercial quantum computing.”
In the areas of marketing, human resources, and legal, Photonic also appointed Alison Berg to the newly appointed role of chief marketing officer; Jessica Hodgson as vice president of people; and Neysa Finnie to vice president of legal.
Founded in 2016, Photonic last year raised US$100 million.
Leave a Reply