Bengaluru Techies Build Room-Temp Quantum Computer: No Cooling Needed

Quantum computers have a cold problem. Not cold as in unpopular—the world is obsessed with them. Cold as physically cold. The most advanced quantum systems on the planet, the ones built by Google and IBM, sit inside chandelier-like cryogenic refrigerators chilled to temperatures near absolute zero: -273°C. That is colder than outer space. This is not a minor engineering footnote. It is the single biggest obstacle standing between quantum computing and the real world. Those cooling systems require massive infrastructure, specialized helium supplies, and budgets that only the world's largest tech companies can stomach. It means quantum computers remain locked away in climate-controlled labs, accessible only to a select few. But what if the cold was not necessary? What if you could build a quantum computer that sits in a data center, plugged into a wall, humming quietly at room temperature?Three Bengaluru engineers decided to find out.From Chips to Photons:ujoy Chakravarty, Ravi Mehta, and Biman Chattopadhyay spent over a decade together at Texas Instruments, building expertise in semiconductor and chip design. In 2012, they left to found Silicon and Beyond, a semiconductor intellectual property company. By 2018, they had built it into something valuable enough to catch the attention of Synopsys, one of the world's largest electronic design automation firms. The acquisition was the kind of exit most entrepreneurs only dream about.Many founders would have retired. Instead, the trio did something unexpected: they went back to school. For six months, they studied every major quantum computing approach on the planet. They looked at superconducting circuits, the path taken by Google and IBM. They examined ion-trap systems. They researched photonics—using light instead of electricity to perform quantum operations.

Their conclusion surprised even them. The Photonic Bet- Superconducting quantum computers need extreme cold because their quits-the quantum equivalent of classical bits—are built from electrical circuits that lose their fragile quantum state the moment heat enters the picture. Photonic quantum computers, by contrast, use light as their computational medium. Photons are massless, electrically neutral particles that can be precisely controlled at room temperature.The three engineers saw an opportunity. India does not have the cryogenic infrastructure to support hundreds of superconducting quantum computers. But photonics? India already manufactures telecom-grade photonic components. The path from research to commercial reality suddenly looked much shorter.They named their startup Influence, brought in Professor Anil Prabhakar from IIT Madras and Professor Sandeep Goyal from WISER Moral as co-founders, and began building.

A Different Kind of Qubit- Most photonic quantum systems try to manipulate individual photons, one at a time. Quanfluence took a different approach. Their technology uses the electric field generated by groups of photons, a method they believe offers better stability and scalability. Instead of building a universal quantum computer from day one—a goal that even Google and IBM acknowledge is still years away—the team focused on something practical. Their Optical Using Machine can process 128 interconnected variables and solve complex optimization problems that would choke classical computers. Companies can access it through the cloud. Eight paying customers are already using it. The founders are being honest about what they have built and what they have not. This is not a replacement for Google's Sycamore or IBM's Osprey—not yet. But it is a functioning quantum-inspired machine that sits at room temperature, costs a fraction of what cryogenic systems cost, and lays the foundation for something much bigger.

Global Parallels- Influence is not alone in chasing room-temperature quantum computing. In Australia, Quantum Brilliance is building quantum computers based on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond—atomic-scale defects that host stable nuclear spins even at room temperature. In Italy, researchers at Sapienza University have demonstrated Colossus 2.0, a modular photonic quantum computer that also operates without cryogenics. Stanford materials scientists recently built a nanoscale optical device that achieves quantum communication at room temperature using molybdenum disulfide. The global consensus is forming: if quantum computing is going to escape the lab and enter the real world, it needs to work without the chill.

Why This Matters- The founders' journey from semiconductor engineers to quantum pioneers carries a lesson that extends far beyond technology. They spent years mastering one field, then had the courage to become beginners again. They questioned existing approaches, studied alternatives, and made a bet on a technology that many considered unproven. For India, the implications are significant. The country's National Quantum Mission has set ambitious goals for 2031, and domestic innovation will be critical to meeting them. Influence is one of a growing number of Indian startups—alongside Apia, Nu Labs, and others—building quantum capabilities from the ground up. "We should not rush," said Professor C.M. Chandrashekar of Disc, whose team recently built India's first SIGQUIT photonic quantum system.

The Road Ahead- Influence still has a long journey ahead. A fully fault-tolerant, universal quantum computer remains decades away, even by the most optimistic estimates. The company's revenue of approximately USD 400,000 and seed funding of USD 2 million are modest by global standards. But the direction is clear. The future of quantum computing does not belong solely to those who can afford to freeze the universe. It belongs to those who can make photons compute, diamonds think, and silicon dream—all at the temperature of a Bengaluru afternoon.