China's Tianyan cloud adds photonic quantum computer in 'world first'

Researchers and developers worldwide can now access a new photonic quantum computer that recently began formal operation in China and was connected to China Telecom Quantum Group's Tianyan cloud platform.

The group said the expansion marks a global first. "With Tianyan-P2000 online, our platform has become the world's first cloud platform capable of providing quantum advantage services through both photonic and superconducting technologies," said Huang Wenya, a senior product manager of the Tianyan quantum cloud platform. The platform is open to research institutes, universities, and businesses, though users must submit applications and pass a review process before access is granted; billing has not yet begun.

The new photonic quantum computer, called Tianyan-P2000, was jointly built by the company in partnership with Jiuzhang (Jinan) Quantum Technology under the guidance of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics. Developers said it's based on the same core architecture as Jiuzhang 4.0, a photonic quantum computing prototype whose results were published in Nature in May by a research team led by the University of Science and Technology of China.

According to Liu Chunwang, a quantum control engineer at China Telecom Quantum Group, photonic quantum computing can operate at room temperature, a key advantage over superconducting systems, which require extreme cold.

He added that it also offers longer coherence times, has lower noise and operating costs, and can directly interface with existing fiber-optic and quantum communication networks. Coherence time refers to the duration over which a qubit, the fundamental unit of quantum information, retains its quantum properties. Noise refers to various factors that can affect the accuracy of calculations.

The group claims the system can control 2,682 photons. In a benchmark test, developers said the device completed a high-complexity computation in just 29 microseconds — a task they claim would take classical supercomputers an estimated 16 billion years to complete. That comparison applies to a narrowly defined class of problems rather than general-purpose computing, but researchers regard such demonstrations as important evidence that quantum devices can outperform classical computers in specific tasks.

After joining the Tianyan cloud platform, Tianyan-P2000 now provides computing resources to research institutes, universities, and businesses. The platform has launched applications in graph data analysis, drug discovery, spectral computation, and machine vision.

The group said the platform has previously connected five superconducting quantum computers to its network. It has recorded over 50 million visits, processed more than 4 million experimental tasks, and served users in more than 60 countries and regions.

Though Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure, and D-Wave Leap offer similar services, Liu said that only China has demonstrated quantum computational advantage through both photonic and superconducting approaches.

Quantum computing has become a focal point in global technology competition, with governments and industry leaders betting that it could reshape complex information processing and expand the limits of computation. This week, US President Donald Trump ordered a push to accelerate the development of high-performance quantum computers and strengthen their applications in scientific research and cybersecurity, according to Reuters.

Zheng Jinran in Beijing contributed to this story.