Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center (AQCERC)

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Anhui is a region in China, very close to Shanghai, and where there are many universities.

In the west side you can find the region of Hubei, where Wuhan is (right where Covid started) and in the east you can find Shanghai.

In the capital, Hefei is where the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center is (well, they have many different offices). This is considered the “Quantum Hub” of China, and many start-ups are located there.

AQCERC is one of the research organizations that are thriving in the Quantum space, and I would like to review some of the things I read about their work. They do not work in isolation, in fact the AQCERC has a strong partnership with the start-up Origin Quantum.

Capabilities

They are building capabilities in the space of the computers (hardware, software,…), and they are adding capabilities from top to down.

  • They offer their services through cloud access and ad-hoc.
  • They already have the Wukong chip, that can be already considered a product. This chip is integrated as part of the quantum computer.
    • The chip is superconducting, it must operate at temperatures near absolute zero to eliminate electrical resistance and maintain quantum coherence. Different to Microsoft Willow, that is able to operate with less temperature restrictions.
  • They are launching different releases of Quantum Computers, at an incredible speed:
    • Origin Wukong QC 72-qbit (Jan-24)
    • Zuchongzhi 3.0 QC 105-qbit (Jan-25)
    • Origin Wukong QC 500-qbit (May-25)
  • Origin Tianji 4.0 (also known as Benyuan Tianji 4.0) is China’s fourth-generation proprietary quantum control system.
    • V 1.0, December 2018 China’s first fully self-developed quantum control system.
    • V 2.0, September 2020 Improved integration; launched alongside the Origin Wu-Wei system.
    • V 3.0 January 2024 Powered the Origin Wukong (72-qubit)
    • V 4.0 May 2025 Supports 500+ qubits; moved to automated, industrial-grade engineering.
  • Benyuan Sinan Quantum OS is released publicly (enable adoption).

Origin Tianji

Origin Tianji system is responsible for the bridge between classical instructions and quantum operations. It looks like is similar to the Rubin Platform from NVIDIA, but it’s not !! it covers more areas and capabilities.

Its duties can be broken down into four core functional areas:

  1. Signal Management (The “Hardware Interface”)
    • Pulse Generation: It creates ultra-precise microwave and electrical pulses to manipulate qubits.
    • Signal Acquisition: It captures the extremely weak signals returned from the quantum chip after a calculation.
    • Precise Readout: It converts these quantum signals back into classical digital data that a standard computer can understand.
  2. Automated Calibration & Debugging (The “Maintenance”)
    • Real-time Error Correction: QEC.
    • Standardize workflow: using Visage software component, it uses image recognition and deep learning to automate qubit debugging (this is a proprietary software).
    • Automated calibration: that can be done by regular engineers.
  3. Scaling & Coordination (The “Orchestrator”)
    • Mass Qubit Control: Right now around 500 qubits.
    • System Integration: between the Benyuan Sinan OS and the quantum hardware.
  4. Full-Stack Software Integration (all software listed below is proprietary software!!)
    • Monster: Manages the actual control of the superconducting chip.
    • Visage: Handles the visual analysis and automated debugging of chip interfaces.
    • Naga & Venus: Manages service requests and high-level task scheduling.
    • Storm: Acts as the bridge connecting the hardware to the main operating system.

A Wardley Map about AQCERC

In April 2025, AQCERC completed the first-ever fine-tuning of a billion-parameter AI model using a superconducting quantum computer.

Takeaways

It looks like the Post Quantum Computing Event (PQC Event) is going to be defined the day that the current cryptography collapses, but knowing the “harvest now, decrypt later” strategies, and considering the people with these capabilities are going to try to use them and not be detected.

The world in general and the media will define that day when everybody will notice about it; that’s fine.

But here, looking at the capabilities offered by AQCERC, I ask myself:

Why are we not considering that the PQE has already happened?

Ok, maybe they are using these capabilities for other purposes, but come on! what they are building looks awesome.

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