NQCC Releases QCTI Phase 1 Report as Seven Quantum Testbeds Advance to Full-Scale Evaluation

NQCC Wraps Up Phase 1 of the Quantum Computing Testbed Initiative

The National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), together with Innovate UK, has published the Phase 1 report of its Quantum Computing Testbed Initiative (QCTI). The report confirms that seven commercial quantum testbeds are now physically deployed, commissioned, and operational on the Harwell campus, marking the transition to a full‑scale evaluation phase that will run through the second quarter of 2027.

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A Diverse Portfolio of Testbeds

| Provider | Qubit Modality | Notable Specs | |---|---|---| | Aegiq (Artemis) | Integrated photonics | Deterministic single‑photon source in a 19‑inch rack; hybrid semiconductor routing | | Infleqtion UK (Sqale) | Neutral‑atom tweezer array | 16×16 geometry, 100‑qubit system with Rydberg‑state entanglement | | ORCA Computing (Asteroidea) | Integrated photonics / boson sampling | Multi‑source architecture, 2 MHz processing, GPU‑accelerated | | Oxford Ionics (IonQ) – QuARTET | Trapped ions (Ba‑133/137) | >10 s coherence, 99.97 % SPAM fidelity, chassis scalable to 256 qubits | | Quantum Motion (QM One) | Silicon spin qubits | 300 mm wafer‑scale CMOS, automated drift‑calibration, compatible with Qiskit, Cirq, PennyLane | | QuEra UK (Generation‑4/CAST) | Neutral‑atom tweezer array | Zoned shuttling architecture, >200 physical qubits across 2,000 sites, >99 % atom initialization | | Rigetti UK (Ankaa‑class/HERMES) | Superconducting circuits | 24‑qubit lattice upgraded to 36 qubits, 38 tunable couplers, real‑time QEC via Riverlane |

These platforms span the major quantum hardware families—photonic, neutral‑atom, trapped‑ion, silicon spin, and superconducting—providing the NQCC with a unique, side‑by‑side comparison environment.

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From Deployment to Evaluation: Phase 2 Roadmap

Phase 1 focused on infrastructure readiness, clean‑room installations, and the logistical challenges of integrating large‑scale quantum hardware into a national laboratory. Phase 2, titled Testbed Technical Evaluation (TTE), will introduce two complementary project streams:

1. Building Block Projects – Led by the Quantum Software Lab at the University of Edinburgh, these efforts will develop hardware‑aware error‑mitigation techniques, syndrome‑decoding pipelines, and metrics for early fault‑tolerant performance.
2. Pipeline Projects – Managed by NQCC application engineers, these will map real‑world problems—Hamiltonian simulation, combinatorial optimization, and quantum machine learning—onto the strengths of each modality, generating concrete use‑case benchmarks.

The evaluation will employ independent benchmarking regimes to verify system‑level metrics, probe noise dynamics, and assess suitability for specific computational classes.

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Economic and Strategic Impact

The QCTI model positions the NQCC as an “alpha customer,” offering a centralized test environment that de‑risked early‑stage quantum hardware for UK stakeholders. The report notes that the seven participating companies collectively raised roughly $715 million in venture funding during 2025, and the cohort includes notable corporate activity such as IonQ’s acquisition of Oxford Ionics.

Additional funding from the UK Quantum Mission Pilot—about £4.6 million—has been earmarked for sub‑system scaling, on‑chip cryogenic readouts, and real‑time decoding pipelines, further accelerating the UK’s quantum ecosystem.

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Looking Ahead

With Phase 1 complete, the NQCC’s testbeds are ready for rigorous, cross‑platform benchmarking that will inform both hardware roadmaps and software development strategies. Stakeholders can access the full Phase 1 report and accompanying data through the NQCC QCTI Release Portal.

The upcoming Phase 2 evaluations promise to deliver the first systematic, side‑by‑side performance comparisons of the world’s most advanced quantum processors, offering valuable insight for researchers, investors, and policy makers alike.