NTT Backs OptQC’s Aim for a Million-Qubit Optical Computer
NTT is investing in OptQC, a University of Tokyo spinout, to chase a fault-tolerant optical quantum computer with a million qubits by 2030. This target is enormous, and the two companies are still at the design stage. The heavyweight on one side is what gives the deal weight, more than the date does.
The backer is the signal
NTT is one of the world’s largest telecom companies, with decades of depth in optical communications and its IOWN networking program. According to the August 3 press release, it’s taking a strategic stake in OptQC, the amount undisclosed, and committing to a joint research agreement that runs through fiscal 2027 to design the architecture for a large-scale optical machine. A company of that size putting money into photonic quantum computing carries more than any roadmap date, because it points to a serious industrial bet on the approach.
OptQC brings a genuine research pedigree, built on 25 years of optical-quantum work at the University of Tokyo, and the partnership already has some scaffolding, an NTT R&D hub at Atsugi and OptQC’s first machine, MoQuren, running at Japan’s AIST. Kan Takase, OptQC’s CEO, framed the alliance as a marriage of strengths.
“By combining the optical quantum computing technologies that OptQC has developed based on 25 years of research at the University of Tokyo with NTT’s expertise in optical amplification, optical multiplexing, and other technologies cultivated in optical communications, we are confident that we can make significant progress.”
Japan has been organizing its quantum sector fast, and OptQC sits inside that push alongside peers now linking up with international hubs.
About that 2030 target
The banner goal deserves scrutiny. Nobody has built a fault-tolerant quantum computer yet, and a million qubits is an immense jump from where any hardware stands today, the same distant summit PsiQuantum is climbing on its own long timeline.
The release names the unsolved pieces itself, fault tolerance, million-qubit scaling, a working software platform, and system integration, so 2030 reads as an ambition more than a schedule. The “million-qubit” label also counts physical qubits, a different thing from the usable logical qubits a working computation needs.
Optical quantum computing is a legitimate route to chase, with a natural fit to telecom fiber and a shot at better energy efficiency at scale, the same photonic family that companies like QuiX are pursuing for data centers.
Getting there means clearing the exact hurdles every roadmap keeps pushing further out. OptQC and NTT have set interim marks, a 10,000-qubit-class system around 2027 and proof-of-concept projects with users after, which will show far sooner than 2030 whether the pace holds up.