IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) announced it has achieved entanglement rates above 1,000 per second between a trapped ion qubit and a solid-state silicon vacancy quantum memory through a photonic interconnect, according to a company press release.

The company claims the rate is more than four times faster than the previous record for trapped ions, which was held by a research group at Duke University led by IonQ co-founder Chris Monroe, who also collaborated on the current work. The result is detailed in an arXiv preprint based on hardware testing of an end-to-end link between a trapped ion system and a silicon vacancy qubit.

"This work shows that a photonic quantum interconnect need not be a bottleneck for distributed quantum computing," said Mihir Bhaskar, IonQ SVP and GM of Quantum Technologies at SkyWater.

IonQ said the underlying architecture is expected to be compatible with multiple qubit types, including neutral atoms and superconducting systems. The company noted the technology is also part of its work under DARPA's HARQ program, which aims to develop high-speed quantum interconnects compatible with multiple computing qubit types.

The memory and interconnect platform has seen two commercial sales. The first was to the University of Maryland, announced in April, and the second to SDT in South Korea, announced in September.

"Moving qubits through photons will be necessary in any large-scale quantum computer, and this demonstration sets the foundation for some amazing work to come," said Monroe, Chief Scientist at IonQ and Gilhuly Family Presidential Distinguished Professor at Duke University.