Together, the companies will explore architectures to link individual devices into distributed, more capable networks, an important step toward making distributed quantum systems a reality.

Neutral atoms interface naturally with photons, the particles of light used to carry information across networks, making them well suited to link quantum computing and quantum sensing with the photonic channels needed for quantum networking. Infleqtion’s systems combine native quantum memory with multi-modal computing and sensing, providing the device-level hardware and optical interfaces needed to connect into broader networks. Realizing that vision at scale, however, will require the modality-agnostic quantum network architecture Cisco is developing through Cisco Quantum Labs to connect heterogeneous quantum computers, sensors and other quantum technologies into scalable, distributed systems.

To support this distributed architecture, Cisco is advancing research and developing solutions for an end-to-end quantum networking stack designed to dynamically distribute quantum entanglement across connected devices on demand. This includes purpose-built quantum hardware and software designed to manage connections between quantum processors, memory, and sensors, enabling information to move reliably across systems. Most recently, Cisco debuted the Cisco Universal Quantum Switch, a working research prototype, to route quantum information between systems while preserving it with a conversion engine that makes a truly interoperable quantum network now possible.

Infleqtion and Cisco intend to explore key research areas to advance networked quantum systems:

  • Convergence of Sensing and Compute: Exploring network architectures that could orchestrate data transfer between distributed quantum sensors and computational nodes.
  • Quantum Memory and Optical Transduction: Exploring methods to convert or transduce the quantum states held in neutral-atom quantum memory and QPUs with optical channels for quantum networking.
  • Network-Aware Quantum Software: Evaluating opportunities to coordinate multi-modal quantum workloads across connected neutral-atom systems.