The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago has awarded $150,000 from its George Shultz Innovation Fund to Super.tech, a company that is “supercharging” near-term quantum computers to solve commercially useful problems.
The team, led by Pranav Gokhale – a doctoral candidate in quantum computer architecture at UChicago – is architecting a technology stack that makes software explicitly aware of the underlying quantum hardware. Their work enables useful speedups with qubits, matching hardware expected in the next five years.
“Discussions with the Innovation Fund leadership and associates helped us clarify our core strategy and business model. We also benefited from the training and support on crafting a pitch deck, which will help us in conversations with future investors as well,” said Gokhale.
Gokhale developed the company as an extension of the National Science Foundation’s Enabling Practical-Scale Quantum Computation (EPiQC) research project.
“Super.tech’s core innovation is incredibly compelling and may lay the groundwork for quantum computing for years to come. We’re excited to be a part of their early journey and future success,” said Jason Pariso, director of the George Shultz Innovation Fund.
The funding and support from the Shultz Innovation Fund will enable Super.tech to make key hires over the coming months, explained Gokhale. “I have been engaged with the Polsky Center as a former Innovation Fund Associate and an I-Corps participant, so I’m looking forward to staying engaged with Polsky through this investment,” he said.
Gokhale also was chosen to participate in Argonne National Laboratory’s Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) program, which is funded by the Advanced Manufacturing Office within the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Read more at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.