Diraq lays out silicon path to million-qubit quantum computers

Diraq on August 27 published a white paper arguing that silicon spin qubits made with CMOS-compatible manufacturing can scale to utility-level quantum computers on existing data center infrastructure. The company says its roadmap targets 150,000 physical qubits by 2029 and more than 2 million by 2031.

Why it matters: - Diraq is arguing that utility-scale quantum computing will come from standard semiconductor manufacturing, not a one-off physics breakthrough. - The company’s roadmap ties together scale, cost, deployability and error-corrected performance in a way aimed at commercial deployment. - Diraq says that approach could bring quantum processors into existing data center environments.

What happened: - Diraq published a white paper on August 27 titled The Case for Silicon. - The paper outlines an architecture for commercially viable, utility-scale quantum computers using silicon spin qubits and CMOS-compatible semiconductor technology. - Diraq says the platform could integrate millions of qubits onto a single chip. - The company says the first milestone is a system with 150,000 physical qubits and up to 1,000 logical qubits by 2029. - Diraq says the next milestone is more than 2 million physical qubits and more than 10,000 logical qubits by 2031.

The details: - Diraq’s framework says utility-scale quantum computing must meet four requirements at the same time: scalable, economical, deployable and powerful. - The company says scalability requires a credible path to millions of physical qubits. - Diraq is targeting more than 2 million physical qubits on a single silicon chip by 2031. - The company says economics matter at scale, with a target total system cost of less than $1 per qubit. - Diraq says lower operating costs and energy use come from a compact system design. - The company says deployable systems must work with existing computing infrastructure. - Diraq is designing a fault-tolerant quantum processing unit to fit within a rack-scale cryogenic system and standard data center infrastructure. - The company says powerful systems need fast, error-corrected quantum operations. - Diraq’s architecture is designed to enable one million error-corrected operations per minute. - CEO and founder Andrew Dzurak said scaling quantum computing requires solving physics, engineering and economics together. - Dzurak said silicon is the only platform that addresses all three. - Diraq included a full report for readers who want the white paper.

Between the lines: - Diraq is pitching silicon as a manufacturing-led alternative to approaches that may rely on more bespoke hardware paths. - The emphasis on rack-scale cryogenics and standard data center infrastructure suggests the company wants quantum hardware to look more like enterprise computing equipment. - The cost-per-qubit target is a signal that Diraq is framing quantum computing as an industrial scaling problem, not just a research milestone.

What's next: - Diraq says its roadmap points to utility-scale systems in 2029 and a much larger expansion by 2031. - The company’s next test is whether its silicon spin qubit architecture can translate the white paper’s targets into deployable hardware. - Diraq says it will continue building toward commercially viable quantum computers using existing semiconductor foundries and CMOS processes.

The bottom line: - Diraq is betting that the fastest route to useful quantum computing runs through silicon, semiconductor fabs and data center-ready systems.