Quantum/Machines/Alice & Bob Helium
· operational · Superconducting circuits
Alice & Bob Helium
Alice & Bob Helium is a superconducting circuits quantum computer operated by Alice & Bob in . It has 18 physical qubits. It ranks 38 of 43 superconducting machines in this table by physical qubit count. 7 sourced specs are in the spec sheet. 1 published benchmark or milestone record are listed below, each marked by who measured it.
Also known as Helium Quantum System
Unveiled on 11 June 2026 as a research platform offered to partners, with a planned 48 cat-qubit upgrade. No customer site or location is named, and no logical qubit has been shown on it. Country is blank because the sources do not state it.
Spec sheet
Technical details as the builder or a paper states them, each with its own source. A blank is a fact we could not source, not a zero. Fidelity and coherence figures are in the benchmark table below.
| Spec | Value | Basis | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Helium chip, 18 cat-qubits | Vendor reported | Alice & Bob says as few as 18 cat-qubits encode its first logical qubit; announced 11 June 2026. | quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com |
| Qubit type | noise-biased cat-qubit (superconducting) | Vendor reported | Alice & Bob claims bit-flip protection can exceed an hour. | quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com |
| Power draw | 40 kW | Vendor reported | Both sources say about 40 kW to run; approximate vendor figure. | quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com |
| Software | Felis framework, Slurm via open-source QRMI, Starboard monitoring interface | Vendor reported | Felis provides custom instructions for the Helium chip and stays compatible with major quantum programming frameworks. | quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com |
| Access and pricing | on-premise platform for research partners, national labs and HPC centres; no price stated | Vendor reported | Partners get integration support, joint maintenance and shared authorship of results. | quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com |
| Successor | 48 cat-qubit chip generation | Vendor reported | Helium is built to be upgraded to a 48 cat-qubit chip expected to hold multiple logical qubits. | quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com |
| Roadmap | 48 cat-qubit upgrade, then a universal fault-tolerant quantum computer targeted for 2030 | Vendor reported | QCR reports the 2030 target (11 June 2026); the Bluefors page ties 2030 to the 100-logical-qubit Graphene machine. | quantumcomputingreport.combluefors.com |
Milestone claims
- Alice & Bob says cat-qubit bit-flip protection can exceed an hour; Helium targets one logical qubit from 18 cat qubits; no logical qubit has been shown on it (2026-06-11, vendor reported) quantumcomputingreport.comthequantuminsider.com
Timeline
- 2026-06-11: Announced
- 2026-06: First operational
- 2026-10-07: Status checked: operational
Comparable superconducting machines
Closest in physical qubit count within the same technology. Counts of different qubit types are not interchangeable across technologies.
| Machine | Operator | Qubits | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| ORNL Pathfinder | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | 20 | operational |
| IQM Garnet | IQM Quantum Computers | 20 | operational |
| IQM Radiance 20 for TOYO at G-QuAT | TOYO Corporation | 20 | planned |
| OQC GENESIS (New York) | Oxford Quantum Circuits | 16 | under construction |
| VLQ | IT4Innovations | 24 | operational |
| Rigetti 24-Qubit Testbed at NQCC | National Quantum Computing Centre | 24 | operational |