HomeFull speed ahead. Keep track of advancements in every frontier

TheTechno Optimist.

Xanadu—
Aurora
Courtesy of Xanadu · Press kit, editorial use (opens xanadu.ai)

Aurora

by XanaduCA

ProtoStage 2 of 5

Research system showing modular networking. Work continues on error-resistant GKP qubits.

Updated 22 Jan 2025Checked 25 Sep0 updates this week

Milestones

No announced next step
  1. Borealis quantum advantage (Nature)1 Jun 2022Complete.
  2. Aurora modular system (Nature)22 Jan 2025Complete.
  3. GKP qubit generated on chip (Nature)Jun 2025Complete.

Most important updates

  • 22 Jan 2025
  • 1 Jun 2022

Current obstacles

  • Optical lossLoss in chips and fibre degrades the light states. Error correction needs far lower loss than today.

Physics limits

  • Loss destroys squeezingSqueezed light is fragile: every bit of loss adds noise back. Fault-tolerant GKP qubits need roughly 10 dB of squeezing and very low loss, beyond what chips reliably deliver today.
  • Photon-counting detectors need 0.1 KTransition-edge sensors resolve photon numbers only near 0.1 K and recover in microseconds, which limits clock rates and means every module still needs a cryostat.
  • Photons don't interactPhotons pass through each other, so operations rely on measurement and succeed only with some probability. The machine must make many attempts and route the successes.

How it works

3 parts
Xanadu's photonic computing racks, shot when Aurora was unveiled: chips sit in separate racks, linked by the yellow optical fibres
Xanadu's photonic computing racks, shot when Aurora was unveiled: chips sit in separate racks, linked by the yellow optical fibresCourtesy of Xanadu · Press kit, editorial use (opens xanadu.ai)
Light

Squeezed light

On-chip resonators make squeezed light: pulses with less noise in one property than normal light, the raw material for qubits.

Network

35 chips linked by fibre

Aurora links 35 photonic chips with about 13 km of fibre; everything runs at room temperature except the detectors.

Detect

Counting photons

Transition-edge sensors near 0.1 K count exact photon numbers; those counts shape the light into error-resistant GKP qubit states.

Update log

2 updates

Wed 22 Jan 2025

  • Major: PaperHardware

Wed 1 Jun 2022

  • Major: PaperResearch

About Xanadu

The team behind Aurora

Xanadu

Photonic computers, Aurora, PennyLane

Toronto company building photonic quantum computers from 'squeezed' light, and maker of the PennyLane software library. Aurora (2025) was the first modular, networked photonic machine. It listed on Nasdaq and TSX in March 2026 via a SPAC.

  • Borealis showed quantum advantage on a sampling task (Gaussian boson sampling) in 2022.
  • Aurora (Jan 2025) linked 35 photonic chips into a modular 12-qubit system.
  • Began trading as XNDU on 27 March 2026 after merging with Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp.

xanadu.ai (opens xanadu.ai)Company profile →

Founded
201610 yrs
Headquarters
Canada
Status
Public
Listed
XNDU (opens google.com)NASDAQ
Valuation
public
Last round
SPAC merger and PIPE · $500MMar 2026
Works in
QuantumPhotonic
Coverage
1 program · 3 updateslatest 27 Mar 2026checked 25 Sep
People
Christian WeedbrookFounder and CEO
Primer