Our users

Defense and aerospace

Lead in C4ISR with quantum-enhanced navigation and computing.

Solutions for GPS-denied navigation

Access the world's only quantum-assured navigation system, shown to outperform the alternatives

In environments where GPS is compromised—be it due to jamming, spoofing, or environmental constraints, existing solutions just aren’t sufficient to secure critical crewed and uncrewed missions. Q-CTRL's Ironstone Opal delivers unjammable, unspoofable, and high-accuracy positioning to crewed and autonomous vehicles that operates independently of satellite systems. Field trials have demonstrated Ironstone Opal's superior performance, achieving up to 94X greater accuracy than traditional inertial navigation systems (INS) in both airborne and ground-based scenarios. 

Our customers in commercial aviation, defense, and the UAS sector trust its compact design, tight-SWaP, and standard interfaces to deliver quantum assurance in their most critical missions – all without compromising performance or stealth.

Plane navigating
Solutions to combat the autonomous threat

Add early warning to counter-UAS defenses

The risk of attack from uncrewed systems is growing, with recent missions in Ukraine and Russia illustrating how significant the threat has become.  Existing counter-UAS systems fail in poor visibility and struggle to distinguish true risks from birds and other natural phenomena.

Our customers are deploying quantum magnetometers as an early warning system to clearly identify threats as early as possible. Functioning in environments where other systems fail, and complementing visual and radar-based technologies, quantum magnetometers are an emerging solution to protect critical assets from drone attacks

Solutions for advanced mission planning

Optimize mission parameters, route planning, and resource allocation for complex military or logistics operations.

In defense logistics, even small inefficiencies in routing or scheduling can result in mission delays, increased exposure, and wasted resources. Built to solve hard combinatorial problems, Fire Opal’s quantum-enhanced optimization solver empowers mission planners with faster, more effective decision-making that is validated to address real-world problems. 

Our users can quickly and easily integrate new quantum solutions into the most challenging logistics optimization problems with a single line of code.  Preparing for quantum advantage in optimization is easy - Fire Opal provides an out-of-the-box solution powered by our proprietary AI-driven performance management, so anyone can adopt quantum NOW.  

Solutions for building a quantum-ready team

Build quantum readiness for a strategic advantage on Q-Day

Quantum advantage in quantum computing is coming soon, and defense professionals need to be ready in advance – no one wants to be caught by surprise. As quantum technology is so critical to national security, defense organizations need teams who understand its potential, limitations, and real-world applications.

Black Opal for Enterprise is an interactive learning platform with foundational and advanced quantum courses that can prepare any organization for the coming quantum revolution. Our users are building quantum-ready teams conversant in the most important foundations and applications of quantum technology.

Designed with real-world scenarios in mind, Black Opal for Enterprise features engaging visual lessons, animations, and hands-on activities that make complex concepts accessible for learners at any level. Whether preparing operators, analysts, or program managers, Black Opal ensures your teams are not only aware of quantum innovation but ready to lead it.

Desktop and mobile view of the Black Opal user interface

Real-world use cases

Network Rail

Accelerating the schedule for quantum-enhanced rail

Accelerate the usefulness of quantum computing for rail scheduling through custom solution development and performance optimization utilizing Fire Opal.

6X

increase in solvable problem size and accelerated timeline to practical quantum advantage by up to 3 years, now estimated for 2028.

Read the case study

We were pleasantly surprised to see the optimal routing of 26 trains over 18 minutes of real scheduling data for the full station topology being realised on a real quantum device, which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible without using Q-CTRL’s optimisation solver.

Nadia Hoodbhoy
Principal Engineer
,
Network Rail
Q-CTRL

Delivering quantum advantage to airborne systems

Q-CTRL’s Ironstone Opal delivers GPS-free quantum navigation, achieving 94X better performance than INS in real-world flight and ground vehicle trials.

94X

improvement over the performance of a strategic-grade inertial navigation system in real flight tests

Read the case study

We achieved an accuracy in some trials comparable to a sharpshooter hitting a bullseye from 1,000 yards away. But because our quantum-assured navigation system allows a vehicle to position itself accurately irrespective of how far it’s travelled, by analogy that sharpshooter can hit the same bullseye no matter how far away they move from the target.

Michael J. Biercuk
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
,
Q-CTRL
University of Hull, UK

Improving quantum education outcomes with Black Opal at the University of Hull, UK

Enhancing student engagement and real-world understanding in quantum computing through intuitive and interactive learning with Black Opal.

85%

of students reported that Black Opal improved their overall learning outcomes when used alongside their university syllabus, and would recommend its use in future courses.

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Students who engaged with Black Opal as an active companion resource significantly boosted knowledge retention and ultimately understanding. Some of them even engaged further with quantum computing by choosing a final-year project in that field.

Dr David Benoit
Senior Lecturer in Molecular Physics and Astrochemistry
,
University of Hull, UK
Australian Army

Improving Army logistics with quantum computing

With Fire Opal, the Australian Army tested and validated a quantum computing solution on real hardware that promises to outperform their existing methods.

12X

improvement in the likelihood of finding an optimal solution with Fire Opal over the default hardware execution

Read the case study

Optimally routing 120 convoys can take more than a month of classical computation. The Australian Army is evaluating the potential of quantum computing to provide improvements; however, it’s been difficult to validate the feasibility of a quantum solution due to hardware noise. With Fire Opal, an algorithmic enhancement software, we are able to achieve results on quantum computers that build confidence in our quantum roadmap.

Marcus Doherty
Australian Reserve Officer
,
Australian Army
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Make quantum technology useful
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