Updated · Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (.gov) · May 28
Quantum Systems Accelerator Demonstrates 256-Atom Quantum Simulator as Berkeley Lab Expands Industry Quantum Push
Updated
Updated · Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (.gov) · May 28
Quantum Systems Accelerator Demonstrates 256-Atom Quantum Simulator as Berkeley Lab Expands Industry Quantum Push
5 articles · Updated · Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (.gov) · May 28
A 256-atom quantum simulator demonstrated by the Quantum Systems Accelerator marks a new step in scaling hardware for scientific problems beyond conventional computers.
QSA, led by Berkeley Lab with Sandia and renewed in 2025, develops trapped-ion, superconducting and neutral-atom systems; its reconfigurable neutral-atom arrays have already been adopted by companies including QuEra.
Berkeley Lab is pairing that hardware work with supporting infrastructure: the open-source QubiC control system is used for benchmarking and algorithm development, including by NVIDIA’s NVQLink collaborators.
The broader Berkeley Lab quantum effort also includes QUANT-NET, DOE’s only distributed-quantum-computing testbed, which links three nodes and distributes entanglement across 5 km of fiber.
Beyond hardware, the lab says its ecosystem spans NERSC computing access, user facilities and workforce training—QSA alone trains more than 150 graduate students and 100 postdocs each year.
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Will national labs or private startups ultimately win the race to build the first truly useful quantum computer?
As quantum computers threaten global encryption, is the world transitioning to safe technology fast enough to prevent a data security crisis?