Quantum hardware has made remarkable progress. Machines are larger, error rates are falling, and error correction has moved from theory to working experiments. But hardware is only half of what organisations need. The other half is a reason to trust what the hardware produces.

The problem

A quantum computation returns a sample from a probability distribution, on a machine whose behaviour drifts from day to day, chosen from a market of devices whose makers publish their own figures. A result on its own says little. Which program ran, compiled how, on which device, under which calibration? Does the sample show what the program should have produced?

For a research experiment, these questions can be answered in a paper’s methods section. For a business, a regulator or an auditor, they need to be answered every time, in a form someone else can check.

Where the idea came from

My doctoral research studied how organisations decide whether to adopt an emerging technology, through a study of blockchain adoption in Australia. In 2021, as a contributor to a government RegTech working group exploring blockchain for monitoring regulatory compliance, I saw how much depends on evidence that can be verified independently. Choosing a new kind of computing on evidence rather than on claims is the same question, asked of quantum hardware.

What we are building

Lucivant Technologies Pty Ltd is an Australian quantum technology company, based in Melbourne, working in three areas: quantum development, quantum infrastructure and hardware optimisation. Our work is in development, and it is guided by a few principles:

  • Every choice of device explained: recommendations should show the calibration, cost and availability factors behind them, and what we earn should never be an input to a ranking.
  • Every result checkable: experiments frozen before they run, results recorded with the evidence needed to reproduce or verify them, and signed records that a third party can check without trusting us.
  • Evidence that lasts: records signed with both a classical and a post-quantum signature, because evidence is often checked years after it is produced.
  • Safer programs: qLuciv, our quantum programming language, is being designed to catch the mistakes that matter most in quantum programs before they run.
  • Skills: Lucivant Quantum Academy, which I lead, is being developed to teach quantum computing through interactive lessons.

Why Australia

Australia has world-class quantum research and a National Quantum Strategy that counts a skilled workforce, standards and frameworks, and a trusted, ethical and inclusive quantum ecosystem among its five themes. Trust, evidence and good governance are areas where an Australian company can contribute something distinctive to the global quantum industry.

We will measure our own progress the same way we ask others to: by what can be shown and checked, not by what is claimed.