Strategic Advancement Fund approves first loan

The University of Pittsburgh’s (Pitt) Strategic Advancement Fund recently approved its first loan, a $11.6 million loan supporting the creation of the Western Pennsylvania Quantum Information Core (WPQIC).

The WPQIC is a cross-disciplinary, multi-institution organization. It will support university faculty by providing specialized equipment as well as additional staff.

The researchers need correlated photon counters, machines that allow for work to be done in a vacuum, and refrigerators that can keep temperatures slightly above absolute zero.

“What unites all these disparate (research) techniques is that they are hard,” Michael Hatridge, WPQIC inaugural director, a quantum-computer builder and a physics professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, said. “The core’s job is to make them merely ‘super tough.’ By bringing together these amazing, modern instruments, we should be able to make big strides in quantum research.”

The WPQIC will allow Pitt to grow its quantum information science and engineering program offerings. Pitt was one of the first universities to offer undergraduate degrees in the field.

Pitt established the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, a collaboration among faculty from Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University, more than a decade ago. In 2022, it established its first agreements with industry partners in the service of commercialization.