A quantum computer is going into a Sydney data centre, and it fits alongside normal servers. The company is Diraq, spun out of UNSW Sydney in 2022 by Professor Andrew Dzurak. His UNSW team built the first two-qubit logic gate in silicon back in 2015.
How it works
Diraq’s qubits are made with the same CMOS process used for the chips in your phone and laptop, in existing semiconductor foundries rather than custom labs. Partners include GlobalFoundries and imec. That shifts the hard problem from the science to manufacturing in big numbers, which is something the chip industry already knows how to do.
The data centre
Equinix says the system will be Australia’s first quantum computer to operate inside a commercial data centre. It runs an eight-qubit silicon chip, with the cooling and control electronics self-contained, draws less than 20kW and sits alongside standard servers. Installation was on track to finish in October 2026.
The money
The National Reconstruction Fund put in A$20M of equity. Other backers include Main Sequence, Uniseed, Quantonation, and super funds Hostplus, NGS Super and UniSuper.
My read
Using factories that already exist is the whole bet. Plenty of quantum approaches work in a lab. Very few can be built in the millions of qubits. If Diraq’s does, whoever scales first wins, and Diraq is starting from the world’s existing chip supply chain.