Silicon Quantum Computing

taken a $50 million equity stake in Sydney firm Advanced Navigation, which makes so-called positioning, navigation and timing solutions for the mining, defence, aerospace, automotive and marine sectors, an RFC says, including autonomous systems, and a $10 million stake in aerospace engineering company Southern Launch.

Enabling capability investments with military applications, meanwhile, include $20 million equity in quantum technology startup Dirac, $60 million in two tranches for quantum chip maker Silicon Quantum Computing, and a $10 million loan to Emerson, a, quote, global leader in robotics and spatial computing that uses pioneering physical AI solutions to map hazardous and GPS-denied environments, end quote, which was spun out, privatised, from Commonwealth Science Agency CSIRO in 2018.

And in resource value adding, destined to feed the US war machine, there is a $110 million loan to the Donald Rare Earth and Mineral Sands Project, a joint venture between Australia's Astron Limited and US company Energy Fuels, which has also attracted $70 million from government lender Export Finance Australia, and $50 million for Gina Reinhart's lithium miner, Liontown Resources.

The NRFC has also extended $430 million in interest-free loans via the private banks, whose recipients may or may not be listed in its annual report.

I'm your host, Sebastian Hassinger.

My guest today is Michelle Simmons, founder and CEO of Silicon Quantum Computing, or SQC, and Scientia professor at University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Michelle has been working toward building a quantum computer since 1999.

That has taken her from research to building a company and helping shape Australia's quantum policy.

But the way she describes it, those are all parts of the same effort, figuring out what she needs to put together to make the machine work.

Her starting point was manufacturing.

SQC builds devices by placing phosphorus atoms in silicon with atomic precision using a scanning tunneling microscope.

If you've heard our other conversations about silicon spin qubits, this is a different approach from defining quantum dots with metal gates.

Welcome to episode number 704 of this year's Electronic Engineering Podcast called Amelia's Weekly Fish Fry, brought to you by eejournal.com and written, produced, and hosted by yours truly, Amelia Dalton.

This week, we're diving deep into the world of atomic scale manufacturing and quantum engineering with Dr. Ludwik Kranz, head of quantum engineering at Silicon Quantum Computing, or SQC.

Ludwig and I chat about how SQC is engineering quantum processors at the atomic scale, how to measure quantum computing progress beyond qubit count, and what applications could really bring quantum computing closer to practical reality.

So, without further ado, please welcome Ludwig to Fish Fry.

It was a pleasure to be here.

Well, folks, that's all I've got for this week's Fish Fry.

If you'd like even more information about silicon quantum computing, I've included several links below the player on this week's Fish Frying page on eejournal.com and in the description for this week's YouTube episode as well.

Hey, have you checked out EE Journal on social media yet? Well, you should.

Are there some big companies you've committed money to there too?

Yes, there is, and we've been very focused at trying to support the growth of what I think Australia has as a globally leading quantum industry, whether it's in quantum computing, and we've been a significant supporter of both Dirac and Silicon Quantum Computing.

Now, these are two businesses that are on the global stage now.

They're through to the final...

The geometry is frozen the moment you fabricate.

So you must place the atoms with sub-lattice constant precision, which is why Silicon Quantum Computing in Sydney under Michelle Simmons does something that sounds frankly impossible.

They use hydrogen resist lithography with a scanning tunneling microscope, physically lifting individual hydrogen atoms off a passivated silicon surface one at a time to open up single adsorption sites for phosphorus to bond into.

And in February 2026, SQC reported an atom-placed lattice of fifteen thousand quantum dot sites at a claimed placement accuracy of zero point one three nanometers.