Photonic quantum computers encode a qubit in a single particle of light, steer it through a programmable maze of glass and count it with superconducting detectors, and the chips come off ordinary 300 millimetre semiconductor lines. As of mid-2026 no photonic platform has demonstrated a peer-reviewed logical qubit, and PsiQuantum's Nature paper puts fault tolerance at millions of physical qubits.
How Do Photonic Quantum Computers Work?
Photonic quantum computers encode a qubit in a single particle of light, steer it through a programmable maze of glass and count it with superconducting detectors, and the chips come off ordinary 300 millimetre semiconductor lines. As of mid-2026 no photonic platform has demonstrated a peer-reviewed logical qubit, and PsiQuantum's Nature paper puts fault tolerance at millions of physical qubits.