Does a quantum chip care where it lives?

Marina Bay, Singapore. [Photo by: Stefan Hill]

Stefan Hill, Junjie Li

When you travel from the temperate weather in Gothenburg to the humid tropics of Singapore, you will likely notice the difference. You simply wear a t-shirt, maybe you apply suncream, and your body is calling for a coconut ice cream. But what happens to a quantum processor that is fabricated in temperate Gothenburg when it is shipped to the humid, tropical Singapore?

Even though most quantum devices live in carefully controlled labs, the trip and the new location might still change how they behave: the shipping itself, a different lab setup, even a different magnetic environment. If we want a global market for quantum components, they must work reliably wherever they are sent, like consumer electronics such as your iPhone.

This is the topic that engineers from the Gothenburg-based company Chalmers Next Labs AB, ConScience AB and the National Quantum Federated Foundry Singapore (NQFF) have been investigating during the last year, in a project funded by the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova. Subject of the experiment is a QiB1 quantum processor from ConScience AB.

A fragile chip on a long trip

Without going into the details of how a superconducting quantum processor works: Researchers came up with a way to use very thin layers of aluminum oxide to fabricate a key part of quantum bits, also called qubits. A qubit is the smallest calculation unit in the quantum processor. You control it with a microwave pulse of a certain frequency. If the aluminum oxide is just slightly thicker or thinner than designed, it can have a large effect on the frequency that the qubit responds to.

Now imagine this fragile processor travelling from Gothenburg to Singapore. The two places even sit in different magnetic environments, which thin superconducting materials can be sensitive to. Will it still behave the same after a trip halfway around the world?

First, engineers from ConScience AB and Chalmers Next Labs AB calibrated the quantum chip in the WACQT Quantum Technology Testbed in Gothenburg in January 2026. This gave them the initial control frequencies. A few months later, engineers from NQFF in Singapore repeated the exact same procedure. It turns out that the difference in frequency was only about one percent in measurements on both sites. And when the processor was shipped back to Gothenburg and calibrated again in August, the frequencies were still within the one percent margin compared to the measurements in January.

Another important quality factor is the coherence time, called T₁. That time roughly denotes how long a qubit holds on to its information before it fades away. The longer it is, the more complex the calculations you can run. The best qubit on the chip reached a coherence time of more than 100 microseconds, in the range that good laboratories report for this type of qubit.

Singapore-Sweden – a collaboration with potential

You might ask why this project was carried out in Singapore and not another place close to the equator. The reason is that Singapore, like Sweden, has been among the early investors in quantum technology, and both countries have a well-developed ecosystem of research institutions and companies.

Furthermore, in October 2025, representatives from both nations signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to strengthen strategic collaboration in quantum technologies between Singapore’s National Quantum Office (NQO), the Quantum Sweden Innovation Platform (QSIP), and ten leading Swedish research institutions. This framework, built on shared ambitions to advance international collaboration in quantum technologies, talent development and industry partnerships, made several concrete hands-on collaborations possible, such as this one.

Apart from exchanging scientifical methods and knowledge, we did not miss out on learning about each other’s culture and food. When our colleagues from Singapore came to Sweden, we introduced them to Swedish herring, surströmming! Likewise, we got to taste the durian fruit when visiting Singapore. Since everyone survived, we counted it as a successful stress test of international collaboration.

What comes next

The next project ideas are already in the planning. The now established WACQT-NQFF Twin Testbed provides a platform to drive and support more quantum technologies cross-validation projects in Sweden and Singapore.

Does your company produce components for the quantum stack? Are you curious about how your devices behave in different environments? We will start providing a service to realize your measurement projects in the Gothenburg–Singapore Twin Testbed. Reach out to us at hello@chalmersnextlabs.se and we will help you further.

For measurement details, a joint project report will be presented at the APS March Meeting in 2027.

The project “Quantum Advancement through Sweden–Singapore Integration (QUASI)” is funded by Vinnova.