China has achieved a massive leap in computing power, spearheaded by a new optical quantum chip capable of accelerating complex problem-solving by over a thousandfold.
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The photonic quantum chip won the “Leading Technology Award” at the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit last week – one of 17 scientific achievements honoured from more than 400 candidates across 34 countries at the technology gathering.
The chip, which is intended to boost efficiency for AI data centres and supercomputers, is already being used in industries such as aerospace, biomedicine and finance, and is providing “computing power support exceeding the limit of classical computers”, according to its developers.
The advances in large-scale, high-speed, programmable photonic quantum computing chip technology and applications were jointly developed by the Chip Hub for Integrated Photonics Xplore (CHIPX), a Wuxi-based institute in the eastern province of Jiangsu that is affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Turing Quantum, a hi-tech start-up in Shanghai.
“Achieving co-packaging technology for photons and electronics, chip-level integration and wafer-scale mass production of photonic quantum chips – I believe this is a world first,” said Jin Xianmin, a physics professor at the university and founder of Turing Quantum.
“We anticipate developing chips capable of handling larger numbers of photons in the near future,” he told mainland media on the day of the awards ceremony.