Scalability of photonic‑based quantum computing architectures

Ascertain scalable architectures and methods for photonic‑based quantum computing, addressing photon loss, storage, and integration challenges to enable systems that can scale beyond current demonstrations.

Background

Photonic quantum computing offers room‑temperature operation and optical advantages but faces major hurdles including photon loss, storage difficulty, and uncertainties about scalable architectures.

The paper explicitly notes that it is not clear how photonic platforms can scale. Resolving this requires architectural innovations, fault‑tolerance strategies, and hardware advances that together enable large‑scale photonic quantum processors.

References

It is not clear how they can scale.

— Quantum machine learning -- lecture notes  (2512.05151 - Žunkovič, 3 Dec 2025) in Section: Models of quantum computation, Subsection: Implementations, Bullet list: Photonic‑based systems

Whether integrating deterministic emitters, such as quantum dots or atom-microcavity systems, directly onto photonic chips can substantially improve the generation efficiency of entangled photons remains an open question, necessitating extensive theoretical analysis and systematic experimental validation.

— Photonic Chips for Universal Quantum Computing: Retrospective and Prospective  (2610.11321 - Wang et al., 8 Oct 2026) in Section “Quantum Light Sources,” subsection “Entangled Photons”