Digital superconducting quantum machines is the full name of DSQM, the just lanuched spin-off established with the mission to develop faster and more efficient circuits for telecommunications and supercomputers based on superconducting materials. The company blossoms from a discovery “made @ CnrNANO” and has the ambitious mission of bringing a breakthrough in the field of future ICT and computing.
In an increasingly interconnected world, communication and computing infrastructures play a crucial role. The growing need for faster, safer and more effective communications has opened up new challenges and led to the development of fields on the frontier between research and innovation such as that of quantum computing. DSQM aims to address these issues through the development of electronics based on superconducting materials.
“The technological platform we are developing is a candidate to be a game-changer for the classical and quantum computation of the future” says Claudio Puglia, Cnr Nano researcher and CEO of the startup. “The products developed by DSQM promise performance up to 100 times higher than current technology in terms of data rates, computing power and energy efficiency. Furthermore, they will be compatible with existing quantum computers and with traditional semiconductor industry standards”. “The mission of DSQM is to give life to a revolution in the fields of telecommunications and supercomputers, making the world truly interconnected”, says Puglia.
The startup emerged to give shape to a project at the frontier between basic research and tech innovation developed within the NEST Laboratory of Cnr Nano and Scuola Normale Superiore. DSQM took part in various regional and national business competitions achieving excellent results. The DSQM team is made up of Claudio Puglia (CEO), Francesco Giazotto, Elia Strambini, Giorgio De Simoni all Cnr Nano researchers, Simone Gasparinetti from Chalmers University (Sweden), Federico Paolucci from Scuola Normale Superiore and Angelo Di Bernardo from University of Konstanz (Germany).
The technology behind DSQM innovative solutions is based on a phenomenon discovered by the SQEL research group, led by Francesco Giazotto, known as “field effect” on superconductors. “It is the possibility of modifying the electric current flowing in a superconductor through the application of an electric field,” explains Francesco Giazotto. “An effect that we intend to exploit in newly developed devices such as superconducting field effect transistors, which guarantee high performance and energy savings, and which can be operated as if they were based on semiconductor technologies.”. The Superconducting Quantum Electronics Lab (SQEL) investigates mesoscopic superconducting devices at the NEST laboratory of Cnr-Nano and Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.
“DSQM spins out from the brilliant ideas of researchers in our laboratories and from the collaboration with other important research institutions such as the Scuola Normale Superiore, and shows how frontier research, apparently distant from the society, is a powerful drivers engine for innovation “, says director of Cnr Nano Lucia Sorba.
The research that gave rise to DSQM received support from projects funded by the European Community: SUPERGATE a FET project with a budget of 3 million euros, dedicated to the development of basic technology (materials, logic gates for classical computation and high-speed interface), GENESIS financed with € 150 thousand to perform tests for applications in the telecommunications sector both from a technical and a market point of view; and SPECTRUM project funded with 2.5 million for development and testing in an industrial environment of a radiofrequency switching device to support quantum computing.
