- The system connects directly to a standard alternating-current power outlet
- Sulfur co-implantation gave engineers precise control over individual diamond qubits
- Single-qubit fidelity reportedly reached 99.98%
German startup Saxon Q has launched the world’s first portable diamond-powered quantum computer operating at room temperature without requiring complex cryogenic cooling equipment.
The system fits inside a standard server rack, connects directly to a conventional alternating-current power outlet, and supports configurations reaching 128 qubits.
The company says larger 512-qubit systems will become available next year, while its long-term roadmap aims to exceed 10,000 qubits after 2030.
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Synthetic diamonds replace cryogenic cooling with a different quantum approach
The system relies on nitrogen-vacancy defects created inside synthetic diamonds, where nitrogen atoms occupy positions beside empty spaces within the crystal structure to function as quantum bits.
Scientists manipulate these qubits using lasers and microwave pulses, allowing them to represent quantum states extending beyond conventional binary computing methods.
Although nitrogen-vacancy technology has existed for years, producing stable systems beyond 10 qubits has remained difficult because creating reliable defects at larger scales proved technically challenging.
Saxon Q says its breakthrough came from introducing sulfur alongside nitrogen during manufacturing, allowing engineers to improve stability while gaining greater control over individual qubits.
“That’s the key technology point. Because the sulfur lifts the chemical potential to a point that it’s negatively charged,” said Marius Grundmann, professor of experimental physics at Leipzig University and co-founder of Saxon Q.
“The sulfur supplies the electron; the sulfur also makes the vacancy attached to the nitrogen with a very high yield.”
According to the company, this manufacturing process enabled qubits to achieve 99.92% fidelity before error correction, representing fewer than one error for every 1,000 operations.
However, it later updated its data, saying subsequent measurements increased single-qubit fidelity to 99.98%, although those figures have not yet received independent verification.
The hardware is currently available in rack-mounted systems supporting up to 128 qubits, while 512-qubit configurations are expected next year and expansion beyond 10,000 qubits remains the long-term objective after 2030.
Practical deployment offers advantages while scalability questions remain unresolved
Unlike many quantum systems that require cryogenic refrigeration and extensive infrastructure, Saxon Q says its hardware can operate directly within conventional computing environments without dedicated cooling facilities.
“We have a fully functioning quantum computer… We have a quantum computer that can execute quantum code that you can reach via the network, and it is a multiuser, multitasking, multicore system,” Grundmann added.
The company believes local deployment could reduce dependence on cloud-based quantum services for applications including robotics and autonomous driving, where communication delays may become unacceptable.
Researchers still caution that comparing nitrogen-vacancy systems directly with superconducting quantum computers remains difficult because both technologies emphasize different engineering approaches and operating characteristics.
Existing studies generally indicate superconducting systems deliver faster processing, although the balance between processing speed, cloud latency, and practical deployment remains uncertain across different workloads.
Another unresolved challenge involves increasing chip density, since current devices support only eight or 16 qubits per chip.
Future applications may require hundreds of thousands or even millions of interconnected qubits operating within significantly larger quantum arrays.
Via Live Science
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