Pasqal, a French neutral atoms quantum computing startup, yesterday revealed that it was in the process of setting up its first North American production facility for quantum computers. The new premises will be located in Sherbrooke, Canada, at the Espace Quantique 1 of DistriQ - Quantum Innovation Zone. The company's (already established) primary manufacturing space - operating outside of Paris, France - will continue to serve the company's European client base, and the southern Quebec division will serve the North America market. Pasqal CCO Benno Broer informed EE Times Europe that: "We have already sold two quantum computers for on-premise install in Germany and France, which will be commissioned by the end of this year...We also already offer cloud access to our quantum computers located in our Paris-based datacenter."

Pasqal is aiming to open its new 4,600-square-meter facility in Sherbrooke, Canada in Q3 2023. Broer continued to talk about this expansion: "Our Canada operations are an extension of our existing successful European operation. Europe has been our primary market since 2019." Last November Pasqal, EDF, Excision and the Quantum Innovation Zone announced a joint venture and creation of a center of excellence to develop sustainable energy solutions, harnessing the potential of high-performance computing and quantum computing. They hope to have the first sustainable quantum-based solutions ready by 2024.

A researcher team operating out of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago are developing a special type of material that is simultaneously capable of emitting fluorescent pattern and undergoing deformation via forced stretches or bends. This thin piece of experimental elastic can function as a digital display, even under conditions of great force - its creators claim that their screen technology material can be stretched to twice the original length without any deterioration or failures.

Sihong Wang (assistant professor of molecular engineering) has lead this research project, with Juan de Pablo (Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering) providing senior supervision. The team predicts that the polymer-based display will offer a wide range of applications including usage foldable computer screens, UI-driven wearables and health monitoring equipment. Solid OLED displays are featured in many modern devices that we use on a daily basis, but the traditional nature of that technology is not suitable for material flexibility due to inherent properties of "tight chemical bonds and stiff structures". Wang hopes to address these problems with his new polymer-type: "The materials currently used in these state-of-the-art OLED displays are very brittle; they don't have any stretchability. Our goal was to create something that maintained the electroluminescence of OLED but with stretchable polymers."