Oxford Quantum Circuits raises $100M for QCaaS

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), a start-up based in the UK focused on quantum compute-as-a-service (QCaaS), announced a US$100 million funding round led the SBI Investment, a Japanese  VC fund. New investors in the round have been confirmed in addition to existing investors, Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), Lansdowne Partners, and OTIF, acted by manager Oxford Investment Consultants (OIC).

In addition, OQC announced the public availability of OQC Toshiko, an enterprise-ready, 32-qubit quantum computing platform that will soon be offered on public clouds.

Commenting on the news, Ilana Wisby, Chief Executive Officer at OQC, said: “To solve the world’s most pressing challenges – from climate change to accelerated drug discovery – we need to put quantum computers in the hands of humanity and at the fingertips of our most brilliant minds. We’re proud to be pioneering enterprise ready quantum with our customers, partners and investors.”

Eugene Bergen President, EMEA at Equinix, said “As the world’s digital infrastructure company, Equinix continues to partner with the very best to accelerate innovation by facilitating secure, high-bandwidth access to cutting-edge technology such as quantum computing for thousands of organisations worldwide. The inclusion of OQC’s quantum computer into our global interconnection ecosystem on Platform Equinix® reinforces our dedication to fostering innovation and continues to push the boundaries of what is possible. We are thrilled by the great partnership with OQC that enables us to stay ahead in innovation to help organisations across the globe address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

“Addressing the grand challenges of tomorrow requires the seamless integration of quantum with the GPU-accelerated supercomputing of today,” said Tim Costa, director of HPC and quantum at NVIDIA. “By combining OQC Toshiko with the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip through NVIDIA CUDA Quantum, a platform for integrated quantum-classical computing, OQC can better empower businesses and researchers to make breakthroughs across industries and in critical scientific domains.”

https://oxfordquantumcircuits.com/toshiko-the-worlds-first-enterprise-ready-quantum-platform

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Dell'Oro: Party is Over for WLAN Market

Vendors depleted their backlogs of Wireless LAN (WLAN) orders faster than expected, bringing worldwide revenues down 4 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) in 3Q 2023, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.  Following an unprecedented stretch of revenue expansion, vendors are now reporting flat or declining orders from enterprises, and the slowdown is expected to last for several more quarters.

"3Q 2023 was an inflection point in the WLAN market. A large variability in vendor revenues summed to a slight market contraction," said Siân Morgan, Research Director at Dell'Oro Group.  "Cisco eked out a 3 percent Y/Y gain on a calendar quarter basis, with license revenues supporting the expansion despite a decline in the number of units shipped.

"The next few quarters are expected to be a challenge for WLAN vendors. Enterprises and system integrators must take the time to deploy the equipment they received before embarking on new projects.  In addition, the return to demand-driven conditions is expected to put downward pressure on unit prices.  Only a select few vendors can grow WLAN revenues in these market conditions," continued Morgan.

Additional highlights from the 3Q 2023 Wireless LAN Quarterly Report:

• Y/Y revenue growth varied widely from vendor to vendor, ranging from under -50 to over +50 percent.
• Price growth helped soften the decline in unit shipments, but prices for the different Wi-Fi technologies are shifting.
• More vendors recognized Wi-Fi 7 revenues, but enterprise class Wi-Fi 7 sales will not become significant until 2024. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi 6E adoption continued to climb slowly in 3Q 2023, to just over 10 percent of units shipped.
• Not all verticals declined with the market. For instance, WLAN sales to the Healthcare vertical grew Y/Y in 3Q 2023.
• WLAN sales to the major regions were flat or down, while the smaller regions grew Y/Y.
• Revenues from Public Cloud-Managed WLAN contracted Y/Y for the first time in history, although they still outperformed Premises+Private Cloud-Managed WLAN on a Y/Y basis.

https://www.delloro.com/news/party-is-over-for-wlan-market-as-revenues-contract-in-3q-2023/

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Dell Technologies sees growing server sales driven by AI

Dell Technologies posted Q3 revenue of $22.3 billion, down 10% year-over-year. The company generated operating income of $1.5 billion and non-GAAP operating income of $2 billion, down 16% and 17% year-over-year, respectively. Diluted earnings per share was $1.36, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.88. Cash flow from operations for the third quarter was $2.2 billion, driven by profitability and strong working capital performance. The company has generated $9.9 billion of cash flow from operations throughout the last 12 months.

Infrastructure Solutions Group delivered third quarter revenue of $8.5 billion, flat sequentially and down 12% year-over-year. Servers and networking revenue was $4.7 billion, with 9% sequential growth driven by AI-optimized servers. Storage revenue was $3.8 billion, down 8% sequentially with demand strength in unstructured data solutions and data protection. Operating income was $1.1 billion.

• AI optimized server orders nearly doubled sequentially and increased to roughly 33% of server orders revenue in Q3
• AI optimized server backlog approximately doubled Q/Q, and Dell's multi-billion dollar sales pipeline is substantially higher versus the end of Q2
• Dell shipped over half a billion dollars of AI optimized server revenue in the quarter

Client Solutions Group delivered third quarter revenue of $12.3 billion, down 11% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. Commercial client revenue was $9.8 billion, and Consumer revenue was $2.4 billion. Operating income was $925 million.

"Technology is everywhere, and we continue to focus on extending our leadership positions and turning new opportunities into incremental growth," said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and chief operating officer. "Our servers and networking business was up 9% sequentially fueled by customer interest in generative AI. And heading into FY25, we expect revenue growth given the tailwinds to our business."

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Singtel develops Quantum-Safe Network for enterprises

Under a project funded by Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Singtel will be developing Singapore’s first National Quantum-Safe Network Plus (NQSN+) for enterprises.

Singtel is working in partnership with ID Quantique (IDQ) to offer quantum-safe technologies such as quantum key distribution, which is a secure method for distributing encryption keys only known between shared parties, and post-quantum cryptography, a new, advanced form of encryptions algorithms that are secure against attacks from quantum computers.

The Quantum-Safe Network will leverage Singtel’s managed network services and fibre network with selected exchanges stipulated as trusted nodes to establish a reliable, secure and resilient nationwide quantum key distribution network. This enables enterprises to secure their communications across the island and extends quantum-safe security to new use cases and applications such as identity, mobility and authentication services.

Mr Ng Tian Chong, Chief Executive Officer, Singtel Singapore, said, “With quantum computing gaining traction and potentially used as a threat vector by malicious actors to attack classical (traditional) encryption, it is imperative that organisations update their assets to safeguard their information and boost their cyber resilience. With Singtel’s nationwide quantum-safe network for enterprises, Singapore’s first, we are securing our data networks from advanced quantum threats for our customers and giving them easy access to solutions to safeguard their critical data in the quantum age. We’re also laying the foundation for becoming a regional hub for quantum computing as well as a launchpad for new leading-edge innovations and applications. We encourage enterprises and the industry to co-create these possibilities with us.”

https://www.singtel.com/about-us/media-centre/news-releases/singtel-to-develop-singapore-s-first-nationwide-quantum-safe-net

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