Pasqal has achieved a breakthrough: a photonic chip has for the first time held atom qubits.
French company Pasqal has presented a significant result in the field of quantum computing: for the first time, it has managed to control neutral atoms using laser light generated and routed directly on a photonic integrated circuit. This achievement opens new prospects for scaling quantum systems.
The essence of the experiment and its significance
During the demonstration, a single photonic chip formed four independently controlled optical traps that held four rubidium atoms. For neutral-atom quantum computers, this is the first such result, highlighting the potential of integrating optics at the chip level.
Traditionally, such systems rely on external optical components — so-called optical tweezers — which take up significant space and complicate scaling. Pasqal aims to move this infrastructure onto photonic circuits, and the current experiment demonstrates that the performance of the chip-based system is comparable to classical optics: the lifetime of the trapped atoms was about 27.5 seconds.
The path to thousands of atoms
Although four atoms are merely a proof of principle, optical infrastructure is becoming one of the key bottlenecks when moving toward more powerful quantum processors. Pasqal plans to use integrated photonics in future systems with more than 10,000 atoms and 100 logical qubits. According to the developers, this approach will significantly simplify the optical part of the processor and make the production of quantum devices more scalable.
To create the photonic chip, the company used technologies from its subsidiary Aeponyx, acquired in 2025. This deal was aimed precisely at integrating photonic circuits into Pasqal's hardware platform and accelerating the transition to fault-tolerant computing.
It is worth recalling that earlier Pasqal, together with Saudi Aramco, launched the first quantum computer in Saudi Arabia.
My analysis: This step is not just a technical curiosity, but a strategic signal for the entire industry. If Pasqal manages to scale photonic control to thousands of atoms, it could radically change the economics of quantum computing, reducing the cost and complexity of systems. However, commercial application is still far off, and the key test will be the transition from a laboratory prototype to real computational tasks.