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Alpine Quantum Technologies (AQT)  is a quantum computing hardware company based in Innsbruck, Austria. AQT is developing and building a general-purpose trapped ion quantum computer, and collaborating with partners on the development of quantum algorithms.

History
AQT was co-founded by quantum physicists Rainer Blatt, Peter Zoller, and Thomas Monz in 2018. The company is a spin-off from the University of Innsbruck and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, and still cooperating with these on several projects.

Several of the founders’ academic contributions over the last decades are considered major advancements in the field of quantum information science, and have been key in establishing ion trap technology as a hardware platform for quantum information processing. AQT is attempting to transfer this technology from a scientific laboratory environment to practical use, and aims at presenting a commercial quantum computer by 2022. To this end, the company has raised an initial seed funding from the Federation of Austrian Industries Tyrol, followed by a first investment of 10 Mio Euro from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency and the University of Innsbruck.

Technology
AQT’s hardware core builds upon ion trap technology and was developed by Rainer Blatt and his coworkers in the past decades, following a theoretical proposal by Peter Zoller and Ignacio Cirac from 1995.

In 2019, AQT included their architecture to the open-source quantum computing frameworks Cirq and Qiskit and started to provide access to ion trapping hardware operated by the University of Innsbruck to selected partners for academic purposes.