Toshiko: OQC’s Quantum Leap with $100M Funding

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), a spin-off of Oxford University Physics, recently announced the introduction of Toshiko, a service platform for 32-qubit quantum computing.

Additionally, the company received $100 million in Series B funding from the SBI Group’s investment division in Japan. According to the organization, Toshiko is the “first enterprise-ready quantum computing platform in the world.”

McKinsey, Equinix, Nvidia, Amazon Web Service, and OQC are collaborating to “bring quantum out of the lab” and establish “quantum advantage.”

A quantum advantage refers to a technological threshold beyond which a conventional binary computer would be unable to resolve a given problem in a practical timeframe using a quantum computer.

Numerous assertions of quantum advantage have been made over the last decade, with Google and IBM being among the most prominent, but there is currently no industry-wide consensus.

Although the majority of quantum computing systems are still regarded as experimental, the sector has shifted its attention towards enterprise solutions due to the introduction of hybrid and cloud-based classical and quantum systems, as well as the first on-site commercial quantum platforms.

Tim Costa, director of HPC and quantum at Nvidia, stated in a press release that OQC is also disclosing the Series B funding round, which is valued at $100 million.

“Addressing the grand challenges of tomorrow requires the seamless integration of quantum with the GPU-accelerated supercomputing of today. By combining OQC Toshiko with the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip through NVIDIA CUDA Quantum, a platform for integrated quantum-classical computing, OQC can better empower businesses and researchers to make breakthroughs across industries and in critical scientific domains.”

SBI Investments of Japan will spearhead the fundraising effort, with Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), Lansdowne Partners, and OTIF joining in.

The company had previously secured Series A funding worth about $43 million.

As per the OQC, the Series A and Series B funding phases of the aforementioned quantum computing startup were the most substantial in the history of the United Kingdom.