A quantum software company has received an investment of over 100 million yuan from China Mobile, accelerating the implementation of domestic full-stack quantum software | 36Kr Exclusive

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This article has roughly 2400 words, with an estimated reading time of 5 minutes

Author | OU Xue

Editor | YUAN Silai

Hard Krypton learned that Beijing Zhongke Huguang Quantum Software Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huguang Quantum"), an enterprise dedicated to R&D and industrialization of full-stack quantum software, has recently completed a strategic financing of over 100 million yuan, with the investor being China Mobile Chain Leader Fund. The funds from this round will be mainly used for integrated R&D of Quantum + AI, introduction of high-end talents, and joint R&D in directions such as distributed chips and new measurement and control architectures.

Founded in November 2020, Huguang Quantum is one of the few teams in China that focuses on basic quantum computing software and industrial implementation. The company's technical team took the lead in undertaking the sub-project "Theory, Method and Core Technology of Quantum Algorithm and Software Development" under the major "Quantum Communication and Quantum Computer" project of the Ministry of Science and Technology's Innovation 2030 "Quantum Communication and Quantum Computer" program.

It is understood that more than 80% of the company's core team comes from top universities such as Tsinghua University and Peking University, with master's and doctoral degree holders accounting for over 90%. The company's founder and chairman Ying Shenggang graduated from Tsinghua University with a doctorate degree, and once engaged in postdoctoral research at the University of Technology Sydney. He is now a tenured senior engineer at the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

At present, when multiple hardware routes such as superconductivity, ion trap, neutral atom and photonic quantum are competing in parallel, quantum software is regarded as the key middleware that "translates hardware of different routes into unified computing power". Compared with hardware companies that compete for the number of physical qubits, Huguang Quantum chooses to cut in from compilers, EDA and cloud platforms. This path does not directly own quantum bits, but determines whether a quantum computer can be truly used by developers.

Overall, Huguang Quantum's product matrix is divided into three layers:

On the underlying hardware side, Huguang Quantum provides quantum chip design and measurement and control tools, including quantum EDA, chip defect detection, measurement and control systems and error correction decoding, helping hardware teams complete design verification and debugging before the chips are manufactured. Its products have been applied in the actual production lines of top domestic superconducting chips.

On the development tool side, Huguang Quantum develops the "operating system-level" tool for quantum computers - the compiler. Simply put, it translates and optimizes quantum programs written by developers into instructions that different hardware can execute.

In the field of quantum simulation, Huguang Quantum has successively developed simulators such as SOFT and SymFT. The latest SymFT achieves about 2.5 times performance improvement when simulating surface code circuits on a single CPU core compared with Stim, the mainstream international simulator, and its performance is up to 3.51 times higher than Clifft in scenarios such as magic state cultivation.

In addition, the company is cooperating with domestic GPU enterprises to migrate the entire set of software to domestic GPUs. The first phase of simulator migration has reached a performance level close to that of NVIDIA's solutions on multiple test cases, and the video memory consumption in some scenarios is less than 10% of the latter.

On the application service side, it operates the Huguang Quantum Cloud Platform and Quantum Machine Learning Platform, providing solutions such as quantum chemistry simulation, drug screening, combinatorial optimization and risk modeling in scenarios including finance, medicine, energy, materials, aerospace and logistics.

At present, Huguang Quantum is the only quantum software enterprise in China that covers multiple chip routes and runs through the whole chain of "hardware tools - program development - cloud application". Its software has been deployed on mainstream quantum systems such as QuantumCTek (superconductivity) and Huayi Quantum (ion trap), and its clients include China Telecom Quantum, China Mobile Cloud Service Co., Ltd. and Sinopec.

In the Quantum + AI direction, Huguang Quantum is building a system that "writes quantum programs in natural language": the intelligent algorithm layer is responsible for understanding requirements and selecting algorithms; the isQCDer large model is responsible for converting the scheme into isQ programs, with a current compilation rate of 98%; the Agent execution layer calls tools for verification and automatic repair.

In terms of R&D rhythm, the company's R&D investment accounts for about 80% of its revenue, and it is generally at the break-even point. Its software business has maintained rapid growth since its establishment.

Ying Shenggang told Hard Krypton that after the A+ round, the company will invest in three directions: first, strengthen the integrated development of Quantum + AI to further improve the independent controllability of domestic computing power; second, continuously introduce talents in quantum program theory, quantum EDA and system software; third, increase joint R&D in directions such as distributed chips and new measurement and control architectures to support the rapid development of quantum hardware.

The following is part of the interview content of Hard Krypton with Ying Shenggang, the founder and chairman (edited):

Hard Krypton: What role does quantum software play in the entire quantum computing industry chain? Why is it regarded as a "bottleneck restricting development" link?

Ying Shenggang: Quantum software is the core hub connecting hardware and applications. Nowadays, there are many hardware routes, and superconductivity, ion trap, neutral atom and photonic quantum are all competing in parallel. But without software, these hardware are just a pile of physical devices that cannot be used by developers.

Our compiler is like the C++ compiler in classical computing, playing a connecting role - it supports the development of quantum application algorithms upwards, and connects to various hardware downwards. At present, we are one of the very few quantum software enterprises in China that can cover multiple chip routes and run through the whole chain of "hardware tools - program development - cloud application". This link does not directly own quantum bits, but determines whether a quantum computer can be truly used by developers.

Hard Krypton: At the commercial level, what is the relevant progress at present?

Ying Shenggang: A number of our core software products have moved from technical R&D to actual delivery and industrial cooperation. Products such as quantum EDA, chip defect detection and quantum measurement and control have achieved project delivery for scientific research institutions, quantum hardware-related units and industrial clients; quantum compilers, high-performance simulators, quantum cloud platforms and quantum machine learning platforms have been deployed and applied in actual quantum computing systems and client projects.

At the same time, we are promoting the implementation of quantum algorithms and application solutions in fields including finance, medicine, industry and energy. Objectively speaking, the whole industry is still in the stage of application exploration in terms of commercialization. Orders from enterprises and universities will gradually increase in the next few years, but large-scale commercial implementation has not yet been fully formed. We are cooperating with more quantum computing hardware companies, and are signing strategic cooperation agreements with several mainstream hardware manufacturers. There will be hardware-software integrated sales in the future.

Hard Krypton: From the perspective of industry changes, what obvious trends have you observed?

Ying Shenggang: The return of talents is obvious, and more overseas students are willing to come back to China. At the application level, enterprises in scenarios such as meteorology, finance, energy, electric power, transportation and biomedicine have begun to explore relevant applications.

The distributed chip direction still requires chip coordination, and we will first complete the development of theory and software. In addition, the company is also promoting the "Quantum-AI Integrated Machine", which deploys the entire set of software on domestic workstations or servers, targeting scientific research, teaching and enterprise R&D departments.

Investor's View:

China Mobile Chain Leader Fund: Quantum computing has become a core field of scientific and technological competition among countries, and China is in a critical "catch-up window period". Basic quantum software is an important link to promote the development of quantum computing, and builds the core hub connecting hardware and applications. Relying on the profound theoretical accumulation of the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huguang Quantum has remarkable scarcity value. The core technical achievements (quantum program theorem prover) released by its team are at the international leading level, and its quantum programming language isQ and compiler products are positioned differently from international giants such as IBM and Google. Through this investment, China Mobile Chain Leader Fund will coordinate the quantum industry ecosystem of China Mobile, help the company gather scarce quantum industry talents for a long time, improve its productization capabilities, and empower the research of key underlying technologies with long-term capital perspective, committed to promoting China to enter the first echelon of global quantum computing, building a solid technical sovereignty foundation for the computing power competition in the artificial intelligence era, and seizing the strategic high ground of future scientific and technological competition.