Canadian photonic quantum computing company Xanadu has partnered with GlobalFoundries (GF) to accelerate the development and manufacturing of advanced photonic components.

The multi-year collaboration will combine Xanadu’s existing expertise in ultra-low-loss photonic design and process development with GF’s experience in photonics manufacturing.

Using GF’s 300mm production line in Malta, New York, the partners will look to develop component parts which include ultra-low-loss silicon nitride (SiN) photonics and Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs), the companies said.

SNSPDs are widely recognized as the most reliable photon number resolving (PNR) technology – advanced optical sensors that determine the number of photons in a single light pulse. By adopting SNSPDs, Xanadu said it expects to “dramatically increase” the speed of its quantum computing systems and “considerably reduce” the chip overheads needed to deliver utility-scale quantum computers.

The collaboration will initially focus on the development of Xanadu's SNSPDs and ultra-low-loss SiN platform, transferring components of Xanadu’s existing technology to GF’s 300mm manufacturing line in order to scale up to an industrial-grade production environment.

The partnership will serve as a manufacturing foundation for Xanadu’s forthcoming fault-tolerant demonstrators, and will help support its ambition to provide the hardware architecture necessary for future quantum data centers.

In addition to scaling up SNSPD manufacturing efforts, the companies said they will also explore ways to further develop high-performance quantum modules to support the increased power and utility of photonic quantum computing systems.

“Transitioning quantum computing technology to a high-volume manufacturing line is fundamental to delivering quantum computing at scale,” said Dr. Christian Weedbrook, founder and CEO of Xanadu. “Partnering with GlobalFoundries allows Xanadu to refine and scale up our existing industry-leading photonics platform and apply GF’s industrial expertise and technology to our photonic chip production. This partnership demonstrates our focus on execution and seeks to provide the reliable, precision-manufactured infrastructure necessary to transition quantum technology from the research environment to commercial-scale data centers.”

Nicholas Sergeant, VP of quantum technology solutions at GF, added: “By combining Xanadu’s advanced photonic computing technology with GF’s 300mm manufacturing expertise, this partnership creates a path to industrialize the critical components needed to accelerate the deployment of fault-tolerant systems and enable future quantum computing architectures.”

Founded in 2016, in January 2023, Xanadu raised CA$40 million (US$27m) from the Canadian government’s Strategic Innovation Fund to build and commercialize photonic-based, fault-tolerant quantum computers. In February 2025, the company announced it had built a prototype of the world’s first universal photonic quantum computer.

In March 2026, Xanadu started trading on the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange, having gone public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp.