Sydney quantum computing company Diraq is installing an eight-qubit silicon quantum computer inside an Equinix data centre in Sydney, with installation on track for completion in October 2026, the two companies announced on 1 September.
Equinix says the system will be Australia’s first quantum computer to operate inside a commercial data centre. That matters because most quantum machines today live in specialised laboratories with bespoke cooling and infrastructure. Diraq’s system draws less than 20kW, keeps its cryogenic cooling and control electronics self-contained, and sits alongside standard servers. According to Equinix, moving to higher qubit counts requires only a chip replacement, with no change to the surrounding infrastructure.
How it works
Diraq builds its qubits on silicon using CMOS, the same manufacturing process used for conventional computer chips, so they can be produced in existing semiconductor foundries rather than custom labs. Its partners include GlobalFoundries and imec. The approach shifts the central challenge from physics to volume manufacturing, an area where the chip industry has decades of experience. The company says its technology can support millions of qubits on a single chip, and it aims to deliver its first product, a quantum computer capable of genuine quantum advantage, by 2029.
Once installed, Diraq will test the system’s performance in the live facility, including remote monitoring, before opening it up to industry partners and customers. “The data centre is where quantum computing goes mainstream, and that shift starts now,” founder and chief executive Andrew Dzurak said in the Equinix announcement.
The founder
Diraq was spun out of UNSW Sydney in 2022. Dzurak led the UNSW team that built the first two-qubit logic gate in silicon in 2015. The company has more than 70 staff and PhD students in Australia, with hubs in Sydney and Melbourne, and US operations in Palo Alto, Boston and Chicago, according to Diraq.
The money
In February 2026 the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation made a $20 million strategic equity investment in Diraq, Startup Daily reported. Other backers include Main Sequence, Uniseed, Quantonation and ICM, along with superannuation funds Hostplus, NGS Super and UniSuper.
Jack’s take
Using factories that already exist is the whole bet. Plenty of quantum approaches work in a lab, but very few look like they can be built at the scale of millions of qubits. If Diraq’s can, it starts the race with the world’s existing chip supply chain behind it, and putting a working system in a commercial data centre is a useful early proof.