Oratomic launches with Caltech paper estimating Shor's algorithm needs as few as 10,000 atomic qubits

Oratomic/Oratomic fault-tolerant computer

Oratomic came out of stealth with a paper, written with Caltech scientists, arguing that a quantum computer able to break today's public-key encryption could be built from about 10,000 reconfigurable neutral atoms, far below earlier million-qubit estimates. CEO Dolev Bluvstein called a fault-tolerant machine by the end of the decade plausible but not guaranteed.

• Founding team of 14 includes Dolev Bluvstein (CEO), Manuel Endres and John Preskill.
• The estimate relies on high-rate error-correcting codes made practical by moving atoms around.
• With about 26,000 atoms, the paper estimates breaking a P-256 elliptic-curve key in a few days; RSA-2048 takes 10 to 100 times longer.
• Endres's lab had already trapped a 6,100-atom array.