The Software-Tailored Architecture for Quantum (STAQ) co-design project aims to build a quantum computer capable of solving challenging calculations within five years. Fred Chong, the Seymour Goodman Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, will receive $3 million to lead the STAQ software team, bridging the gap between new architectures developed by the project and theoretical algorithms that apply quantum computing to chemistry, physics and other domains.

The STAQ project will explore a particular quantum computing technology using trapped ions—atoms with electrons removed to give them a positive charge. Researchers then suspend these atoms in an ultra-high vacuum, and use precise lasers to manipulate their quantum states and form qubits, the quantum analogue of a traditional logical computer bit.