Can a second dimension solve trapped-ion quantum computing’s scaling problem?
Full quantum computer (photos: Zuriq)
ZuriQ, a Swiss quantum computing company spun out of ETH Zürich, has raised $25.5 million in seed funding to scale a processor architecture that moves trapped ions out of their conventional one-dimensional chains and into a two-dimensional grid.
The round was led by specialist quantum technology investor Quantonation, with participation from Forward.one, Extantia, Firgun Ventures and all investors from ZuriQ’s previous financing. It follows a $4.2 million pre-seed round announced in January 2025.
ZuriQ plans to use the capital to expand its team, accelerate research and development and manufacture increasingly complex ion-trap chips. Its immediate objective is to increase the number of quantum bits, or qubits, its architecture can eventually support.
The company’s current demonstrator contains nine individually trapped ions arranged in a 3×3 array. That sounds modest in an industry where roadmaps routinely extend to thousands or even millions of qubits. Investors, however, are not primarily backing the present ion count. They are backing ZuriQ’s claim that the geometry underneath it could prove easier to scale.
Most trapped-ion quantum computers arrange ions in linear chains. ZuriQ instead wants to give them the freedom to move across a chip in two dimensions.
Its central proposition is simple: a line grows one ion at a time; a grid grows with the area of the chip.
What is trapped-ion quantum computing?
Quantum computers use qubits to store and manipulate information according to the principles of quantum mechanics. Unlike conventional bits, which represent either zero or one, qubits can be placed in superpositions of those states, enabling quantum processors to handle information in fundamentally different ways.
There are several competing ways to build them. IBM and Google use superconducting circuits. Other companies work with neutral atoms, photons, silicon spin qubits or quantum defects in diamond. Dutch company QuiX Quantum, for example, is pursuing a universal quantum computer based on integrated photonics.
ZuriQ belongs to a group using trapped ions: individual electrically charged atoms suspended above a chip by electromagnetic fields. The internal quantum state of each ion can encode information, while lasers or microwave signals are used to manipulate and read it.
Trapped-ion qubits offer several advantages. Atoms of the same isotope are naturally identical, avoiding some of the manufacturing variations found in synthetic qubits. They can preserve quantum information for relatively long periods and support highly accurate operations.
These characteristics have made trapped ions one of the leading candidates for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Quantinuum, IonQ and Germany’s eleQtron are among the companies developing systems based on the technology. Oxford Ionics was also pursuing an electronically controlled trapped-ion architecture before its acquisition by IonQ was completed in September 2025.
The central difficulty is no longer demonstrating that trapped ions can perform quantum operations. It is controlling enough of them to build a useful machine.
Why are trapped-ion quantum computers difficult to scale?
Conventional trapped-ion systems usually hold several ions in a linear chain. Within a small chain, the ions can interact through their shared motion, allowing quantum gates to be performed between them.
As the number of ions rises, however, controlling them as a single chain becomes increasingly difficult. Larger architectures therefore divide ions between different trapping zones and physically transport them to the locations where operations are required.
This approach is often described as a quantum charge-coupled device. Linear trapping regions are joined together, with ions shuttled through junctions in a way that resembles vehicles travelling along roads and intersections.
The architecture has produced impressive results, but its complexity increases with scale. More ions require additional trapping zones, control electrodes and transport routes. Each movement must also be executed without heating the ions excessively or disturbing their fragile quantum states.
ZuriQ argues that connecting more and more one-dimensional chains may not be the simplest route to a large trapped-ion quantum computer.
How ZuriQ’s two-dimensional architecture works
ZuriQ’s alternative is based on Penning traps, which confine charged particles using a combination of static electric and magnetic fields.
Most trapped-ion quantum computers use Paul traps, in which rapidly oscillating radio-frequency electrical fields help hold ions in place. ZuriQ replaces those oscillating fields with a large, homogeneous magnetic field and static voltages applied to electrodes patterned onto a chip.
The resulting micro-Penning traps can hold individual ions at separate locations above the chip surface. By varying the electrode voltages, ZuriQ ultimately intends to move and rearrange those trapping sites across two or even three dimensions.
The company compares the difference to transport. Ions in conventional systems move like cars restricted to predetermined roads and junctions. ZuriQ’s architecture is intended to let them move more like aircraft, able to travel between locations without following a fixed route.
Greater freedom of movement could provide more flexible connectivity between qubits. It may also make it easier to arrange them in the geometries required by quantum-error-correction codes, which distribute information across multiple physical qubits to detect and repair errors.
Error correction is becoming a central measure of progress across the industry. As MTN previously explored in its coverage of PsiQuantum’s $1 billion fault-tolerance push, physical qubit counts say relatively little unless those qubits can be combined into stable logical units capable of executing long computations.
ZuriQ’s origins at ETH Zürich
ZuriQ was founded in 2024 by physicists Pavel Hrmo, Tobias Sägesser and Shreyans Jain, who worked together in Professor Jonathan Home’s trapped-ion quantum information group at ETH Zürich.
The scientific foundations preceded the company. In 2020, Jain and collaborators proposed two-dimensional arrays of micro-Penning traps as a platform for quantum simulation and computing.
The researchers subsequently built a microfabricated Penning trap and demonstrated full quantum control of a single ion. The results, published in Nature in 2024, also showed that the ion could be transported freely within the plane above the chip.
This was technically important because Penning traps had traditionally been used to hold groups of ions for precision experiments without controlling them individually. The ETH Zürich team demonstrated that a chip-scale Penning trap could provide the individual control required for quantum information processing.
ZuriQ was created to turn that research architecture into a scalable quantum computer.
What ZuriQ’s nine-ion array proves
The company has since developed a 3×3 array containing nine individually trapped ions. Built with researchers at ETH Zürich in approximately 18 months, ZuriQ describes it as the largest native two-dimensional trapped-ion array demonstrated to date.
The result shows that its architecture can move beyond a single trap and position individual ions in a genuine two-dimensional arrangement.
The underlying chips were fabricated through ZuriQ’s partnership with German semiconductor manufacturer Infineon. This provides an important industrial element: the trap design has been produced using Infineon’s established manufacturing processes rather than requiring ZuriQ to construct its own fabrication facility.
But the result should be kept in proportion. The funding announcement does not disclose quantum-gate fidelities, coherence times, ion-transport fidelities or algorithmic benchmarks for the nine-ion array.
Individually trapping and positioning nine ions is not the same as operating a nine-qubit quantum processor. The demonstrator establishes that ZuriQ’s two-dimensional geometry can be manufactured and populated. It does not yet prove that high-quality quantum computations can be performed across a much larger version of it.
Can semiconductor manufacturing help ZuriQ scale?
Infineon has become an important manufacturing partner to the trapped-ion quantum computing industry. It has worked with Quantinuum, Oxford Ionics and eleQtron as well as ZuriQ, applying semiconductor process expertise to customised ion-trap chips.
ZuriQ says its use of static fields offers potential manufacturing advantages. Removing the need for high-voltage, high-frequency signals reduces power dissipation in the chip substrate and, according to the company, creates a more straightforward path towards integration with standard silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor processes.
This reflects a broader attempt to bring the repeatability and scale of the semiconductor industry into quantum computing. French company Quobly is pursuing the same industrial objective through silicon spin qubits manufactured with established chip processes, although its underlying qubit technology differs from ZuriQ’s.
Repeatable chip fabrication will be essential if ZuriQ is to expand from nine ions to hundreds or thousands. But a quantum computer is more than its processor chip.
ZuriQ’s system also requires a vacuum chamber, a powerful superconducting magnet, lasers, optical components and electronic control equipment. As more ions are added, the company must preserve precise control while managing additional electrodes, optical interactions and potential sources of noise.
Its geometry may simplify ion placement and movement while shifting the bottleneck to another part of the system.
How ZuriQ compares with other trapped-ion companies
ZuriQ enters a trapped-ion market in which several competitors have already demonstrated larger and more mature processors.
Quantinuum has concentrated on high-fidelity quantum charge-coupled device systems. IonQ is pursuing modular machines and acquired Oxford Ionics in 2025, adding electronically controlled ion-trap technology to its portfolio. EleQtron uses microwave-based control to reduce its reliance on complex laser systems.
ZuriQ is earlier in its development. Its public evidence consists of a nine-ion spatial demonstrator rather than a commercially accessible quantum computer.
Its argument is that optimising a small version of the conventional architecture is not enough. The spatial structure of the trap itself must be reconsidered before the industry attempts to scale it.
Connecting separate quantum processors may eventually offer another route to larger systems. UK company Nu Quantum is developing photonic networking technology intended to link quantum processors into distributed machines. This is complementary to, rather than displaced by, efforts to accommodate more high-quality qubits on an individual processor.
What the $25.5 million must help ZuriQ demonstrate
The latest funding will finance the first serious test of ZuriQ’s scaling thesis. The company must now demonstrate not simply more ions, but reliable quantum gates, low-error transport, limited crosstalk and stable operation as the grid expands.
It must also show how its architecture will support the quantum error correction required for practical computation. The most meaningful future milestones will therefore involve performance and reliability, not qubit count alone.
A two-dimensional array offers an intuitively attractive scaling path. On a sufficiently large chip, expanding by area could support many more ions than extending a single line.
Whether the rest of the machine can scale with it remains unanswered. ZuriQ has shown that trapped ions do not have to remain in line. Its next task is proving that giving them another dimension makes the quantum computer as a whole easier to build.
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