Australian technology company Silex Systems has been awarded $5.1 million in funding from the Defence Trailblazer for the Concept to Sovereign Capability Program, a strategic partnership between the University of Adelaide and UNSW Sydney funded by the Australian Government Department of Education.
The funding, made possible through the Trailblazer Universities Program, will help to create a Quantum Silicon Production Plant at the company’s Lucas Heights technological campus, with the goal of providing an end-to-end manufacturing facility.
The initial production module is expected to produce between 5kg and 10kg of ZS-Si (in the form of halo-silane) per year, which will then be transformed into different Q-Si product forms for potential customers in the global silicon-based quantum computing sector.
The new project continues the successful partnership between Silex, UNSW Sydney, and Silicon Quantum Computing that led to the company’s prior ZS-Si Project proving effective manufacture of ZS-Si with enrichment of silicon-28 up to about 99.998 per cent purity.
Silex’s CEO and Managing Director Michael Goldsworthy expressed his delight at receiving the funding, which will be used to help the company convert its Zero-Spin Silicon enrichment technology from pilot demonstration to commercial-scale.
This covers the development of product conversion technology to manufacture two types of commercial Quantum Silicon products (gas and solid) that are required by rising silicon quantum chip fabricators worldwide.
“This enables us to capitalise on the results achieved in the recently completed Zero-Spin Silicon Project for our innovative SILEX laser isotope separation technology, and to establish a sovereign capability and secure supply chain for this critical enabling material for the emerging silicon quantum computing industry,” Goldsworthy noted.
“Previously, the main supply of enriched silicon came from Russia, but this source has been disrupted by geopolitical events”, he added.
Professor Michelle Simmons, CEO of SQC, said the Trailblazer funding supports Silex’s commercial-scale production of Quantum Silicon, the key enriched silicon material essential to the manufacture of SQC’s atom-scale quantum computers in Australia.
“The creation of a sovereign supply of this vital material comes at a time when our traditional source of supply has been disrupted. We couldn’t be more motivated to support this Project,” Prof Simmons said.
The Trailblazer funds, according to Silex, will enable the commercialisation of Q-Si products for use in domestic and international (domestic and civilian) defence and civilian markets, while securing important sovereign capability areas within Australia.
In the coming decades, quantum technologies are predicted to have a significant impact on how we live our lives, with quantum computing projected to open up new vistas and opportunities for national defence and security.
