Microsoft’s Expanding Quantum Computing Ecosystem

The Israel Innovation Authority and the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) recently announced a $62 million USD collaborative effort to establish a domestic quantum computing (QC) infrastructure. The two-pronged approach calls for the Israel Innovation Authority, part of Israel's Ministry of Economy charged with fostering domestic industrial R&D, to focus on developing QC algorithms, applications, and a related software stack to support both on-premises or cloud QC access models. For its part, the IMOD will stand up a national center to develop a complete quantum computer including a quantum processor expected to consist of 30-40 qubits, quantum control capabilities, and I/O interfacing hardware.

Seeking to establish a die-to-die interconnect standard and foster an open chiplet ecosystem, a strong collection of major chip makers and users recently announced the formation of the UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) industry consortium. The consortium has published version 1.0 of the UCIe specification, covering the die-to-die I/O physical layer, die-to-die protocols, and software stack. Promoter members of the consortium are Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE), AMD, Arm, Google Cloud, Intel Corporation, Meta, Microsoft Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)