IonQ<\/a>, USA, has reportedly attained a significant milestone on the road to scalable quantum networks. The company announced that it successfully demonstrated the frequency conversion of photons from the visible wavelengths used to interface with trapped barium ions into telecom wavelengths on a prototype system.<\/p>\nThe company said in a press release accompanying the announcement that this achievement \u201cpaves the way for interconnecting quantum computers over vast distances using the current existing fiber optic infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toward distributed quantum computing<\/p>\n
Photonic quantum computing systems use trapped ion and atomic components that have energy transitions associated with visible wavelengths, which can\u2019t be used in conventional fiber optic links. Converting those visible photons to telecom wavelengths would therefore allow quantum computers to be connected over long distances.<\/p>\n
IonQ, which spun out of the University of Maryland in 2015, did not cite any scientific publications or provide details of the frequency conversion. However, it claims that its approach could in principle be applied to existing telecom infrastructure and extend interconnections between quantum computers to existing long-distance networks.<\/p>\n
The company said it achieved the conversion in collaboration with the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), a major research partner of the company. IonQ and AFRL signed a four-year, US$54.5 million deal in September 2024 \u201cto design, develop, and deliver technology and hardware that enables the scaling, networking, and deployability of quantum systems,\u201d and in March 2025, IonQ delivered and commissioned a quantum networking system based on trapped ions to AFRL\u2019s site in Rome, NY, USA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thrilled to announce that we have taken an important step towards enabling the Quantum Internet. Working closely with AFRL, we are the first quantum company to demonstrate the ability to convert visible signals to telecom wavelengths,\u201d said Niccolo de Masi, chairman and CEO of IonQ. \u201cWe will soon connect two quantum computers over standard wavelengths, opening the floodgates for broadly networked quantum devices using commercial fiber infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The company claims that its approach could in principle be applied to existing telecom infrastructure.<\/p>\n
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A growing company<\/p>\n
The latest announcement came on the heels of a flurry of other news from the company. On 17 September it announced its intent to acquire Vector Atomic, a startup focused on advanced quantum sensors for positioning, navigation and timing applications, in an all-stock transaction. According to IonQ, the addition of Vector Atomic\u2019s portfolio \u201cfurther establishes IonQ as the only quantum company integrating advanced computing, networking, and sensing capabilities within a single platform.\u201d The Vector Atomic deal is the most recent in a series of strategic acquisitions, including the quantum networking firms Qubitekk and ID Quantique, the diamond-based interconnect startup LightSynq and the quantum computing developer Oxford Ionics.<\/p>\n
That same day, IonQ announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to advance the development and deployment of quantum technologies in space. \u201cBy working alongside the DOE, we aim to demonstrate the power of quantum computing and networking to enable new applications for secure communications,\u201d said de Masi. \u201cThis MOU reflects the growing importance of quantum technologies in achieving global leadership in space innovation and cybersecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0[Image: IonQ] Quantum computing and networking startup IonQ, USA, has reportedly attained a significant milestone on the road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[191,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-180388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-computing","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Quantum](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/industry_20250924_icon-image01.jpg\"\/){kind=icon}
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