Peking University Physics PhD Bets on Neutral-Atom Computing; Yunqi Capital Backs Nakaik Quantum's Angel+ Round

From ultracold atoms in a lab to a genuinely usable quantum computer, there's still a long engineering road ahead.

Nakai Quantum, founded just months ago, is trying to accelerate that journey. This young team from Peking University has chosen neutral atoms as its core technical path, advancing key R&D for general-purpose quantum computing on one front while using quantum analog computing to enter real industrial scenarios first.

Recently, Nakai Quantum completed an angel+ funding round, with the Yunqi-Shanghai Jiao Tong University AI Angel Fund participating. Within a single month, the company has closed two consecutive funding rounds, with cumulative angel-round financing exceeding 100 million yuan. Learn more with Yunqi Partners.

Yunqi Capital's Perspective:

We have long tracked opportunities arising from fundamental shifts in computing paradigms. As key technologies continue to break through, neutral-atom quantum computing is accelerating from scientific exploration toward engineeringization. Future competitiveness won't rest on single experimental metrics alone, but on system integration, engineering execution, and product delivery capabilities.

The Nakai team has deep roots in cold-atom research, with substantial accumulated expertise in ultralow-temperature preparation, atomic manipulation, and complex experimental system construction — while simultaneously pursuing long-term breakthroughs in general-purpose quantum computing and industrial applications of quantum analog computing. We look forward to the team continuing to translate scientific capabilities into engineering and product capabilities, exploring more possibilities for next-generation computing.

The following is adapted from ChinaVenture

Another dark horse has emerged in the quantum computing race.

A neutral-atom quantum computing startup — Nakai Qiyuan (Beijing) Quantum Technology Co., Ltd. — has won consecutive bets from investors. This young entrepreneurial team from Peking University, founded just months ago, has now completed angel-round financing exceeding 100 million yuan.

Recently, Nakai Quantum announced the completion of its angel+ round, led by existing shareholder Changshi Capital, with all angel-round investors including Hillhouse (GL Ventures) and Feitu Venture Capital following on, alongside additional investors including Qingliu, Yunqi, and Waniu.

Notably, just one month prior, Nakai Quantum had completed its first funding round, led by Hillhouse. Behind these two rapid consecutive rounds lies investor confidence in the neutral-atom quantum computing technical path, as well as recognition of Nakai Quantum's team for its scientific accumulated expertise and engineering capabilities.

In recent years, investment heat in the quantum computing track has continued to rise. According to ChinaVenture Jiachuan CVSource data, 2025 domestic quantum technology investment volume has doubled compared to 2024. As of early March this year alone, 13 quantum technology companies have received investment, of which 10 are in the quantum computing field.

From Graduation to Entrepreneurship

Fan Yaoyuan, born in 1998, made the provincial physics competition team in his first year of high school with a perfect experimental score, later gaining admission to Peking University's School of Physics through competition placement, and completing his undergraduate studies as a national scholarship recipient and outstanding graduate. In his second year, he chose cold atoms — then still a rather obscure research direction. He describes AMO (atomic, molecular, and optical physics) as one of the most orthodox directions in physics, and "making atoms sing in unison" as the most romantic Nobel Prize inscription he has ever heard.

For his doctoral studies, he chose to continue quantum research under Professor Zhou Xiaoji at Peking University's School of Electronics Institute of Quantum Electronics, and upon enrollment immediately led the construction of China's first ultracold-atom interferometric gyroscope system. On why he pursued advanced studies domestically, he said: "This is the birthplace of cold-atom physics in China. The opportunity and experience to independently build a complete experimental system here held great attraction for someone passionate about experimental physics."

Over years of laboratory research, Fan Yaoyuan has long grappled with engineering challenges: manipulating atoms in extreme low-temperature environments, reducing system noise, and improving experimental stability. The problem-solving abilities he developed during his doctorate, echoing his undergraduate theoretical training in physics, laid a solid foundation for his later leadership in pushing neutral-atom quantum computing from architectural innovation to engineering implementation.

Beyond research, Fan Yaoyuan is also a seasoned outdoor sports enthusiast. During his time at Peking University, he served successively as captain of the university's rock climbing and ski teams, and founded China's first university ski mountaineering team, leading expeditions to summit multiple 5,000-meter peaks and winning national championships in various competitions.

"My experience in the Mountaineering Association taught me: where there are high mountains, the heart should turn toward them," Fan Yaoyuan said. "Building a truly practical quantum computer is a high mountain that countless researchers are collectively pursuing. My choice to start a quantum computing company is a determined climb, and also an inevitable choice to integrate personal growth with national strategic needs."

This January, Fan Yaoyuan again graduated as an outstanding doctoral graduate, speaking as one of the student representatives at Peking University's commencement ceremony. In April, he founded Nakai Quantum, recruiting a young team with technical skills, experience, determination, and courage to embark on the quantum computing journey.

The company has already established deep cooperation with its alma mater Peking University, founding the Peking University–Nakai Quantum Computing Joint Laboratory. The enterprise not only undertakes product development but also continues participating in fundamental scientific research, aiming to maintain technological leadership on the long road toward quantum computing. Under this model, professors from various research directions at Peking University serve as scientific advisors, while the company organizes specialized teams around different technical paths, with engineers, doctoral students, and postdoctoral researchers participating jointly in R&D.

Fan Yaoyuan explained that this R&D model references the organizational approaches of internationally leading quantum computing companies: multiple small teams tackle different technical directions — such as developing continuous loading technology, improving quantum gate fidelity, and achieving system interconnection — ultimately integrating these technologies into a truly practical quantum computer.

Firmly Choosing Neutral Atoms

Architectural Innovation Driving Industrialization

If quantum computing is a technology race with no winner yet decided, then superconducting, ion trap, and neutral atom are the three mainstream paths globally recognized.

Ion traps were the first to enter industrialization视野. Their advantage lies in extremely high quantum gate fidelity, but charged ions suffer from severe long-range crosstalk, with high costs and engineering difficulty for scaling qubits.

The superconducting path is currently the most industrially mature direction. It builds on mature semiconductor process industrialization, but artificial circuit qubits have inherent defects where errors easily amplify.

By comparison, the neutral-atom approach's logic more closely resembles "working with nature." Neutral atoms directly use real atoms as qubits, employing optical tweezers and optical lattice technologies to trap, arrange, and manipulate atoms in vacuum environments. Because atoms naturally possess uniformity, neutral-atom systems theoretically have stronger scalability. Currently, achieving dozens of high-quality qubits in superconducting quantum computing is already quite difficult, while the neutral-atom path has realized thousand-level and even ten-thousand-level atomic arrays. For a future general-purpose quantum computer, this implies greater room for imagination.

But scale doesn't mean everything. In evaluating a quantum computing system, the industry typically focuses on three core metrics: qubit count, fidelity, and continuous operation time. Among these three dimensions, neutral atoms' advantages are almost entirely concentrated in scale, while the other two metrics remain widely acknowledged weaknesses — fidelity lags behind ion traps, and continuous operation time is only a few hundred milliseconds, requiring the system to re-experience atom trapping and cooling after each computation.

In 2025, a Harvard University team first verified "Continuous Loading" technology for neutral atoms. Before this, neutral-atom systems needed to recool and reload atoms after each experiment, with system operation times typically only a few hundred milliseconds. The emergence of continuous loading technology directly extended this to over two hours, considered an important turning point for neutral atoms moving toward practical application.

It was at this technological window that Fan Yaoyuan decided to found Nakai Quantum, hoping to push the quantum technologies accumulated over the past decade toward industrialization. And architectural innovation is key to this.

Nakai Quantum is one of the very few domestic startups simultaneously布局 both ultracold-atom quantum analog computing and neutral-atom general-purpose quantum computing paths. The company name "Nakai" derives from the nanokelvin (nK) unit in the absolute temperature scale, symbolizing the team's core capabilities in extreme cooling and precise atomic manipulation. Currently, the team has mastered key technologies for cooling nine elements and their isotopes — rubidium, potassium, cesium, lithium, sodium, ytterbium, strontium, dysprosium, and erbium — to below 10 nanokelvin, ranking domestically leading in controllable atomic species and ultralow-temperature manipulation capabilities. Additionally, the team possesses internationally top-tier optical lattice and optical tweezer atomic manipulation technologies and advanced quantum Monte Carlo algorithms, simultaneously supporting quantum analog and quantum computing platform R&D.

Dual-Wheel Drive:

Analog Computing for Commercialization, General Computing for the Future

In the general-purpose quantum computing field, neutral atoms remain at a very early stage. Industry consensus holds that a general-purpose quantum computer with genuine practical value may still be 5–10 years away from large-scale application.

Unlike many quantum computing startups still focused on technical validation, Nakai Quantum has already formed an industrialization path from technology R&D to product delivery. The company has completed delivery of quantum analog integrated systems including "Nakai-1" and cold-atom experimental systems, securing market orders in the tens of millions.

To avoid the funding pressures of lengthy R&D cycles, Nakai Quantum has formulated a "dual-wheel drive" strategy: on one hand, exploring application scenarios such as materials R&D, biopharmaceuticals, and semiconductor simulation through quantum analog computing (specialized quantum computers) to accelerate commercialization; on the other hand, continuing investment in general-purpose quantum computing R&D, positioning around key technologies including continuous loading, high-fidelity manipulation, and system interconnection to capture the technological high ground for the coming decade.

"Currently in China, in the ultracold-atom quantum analog computing细分方向, we are the only team capable of engineering and delivering complete integrated systems — we hold an absolutely leading position." In Fan Yaoyuan's assessment, quantum analog computing is likely to see industrial爆发 earlier than general-purpose quantum computing, not only because it has real industrial scenario drivers, but more fundamentally because it aligns closely with quantum systems' first principles. As physicist Feynman said: "Nature isn't classical, it's quantum." If you want to calculate materials, proteins, and drugs made of atoms, the best way is to use a quantum system to simulate them.

Another of Nakai Quantum's differentiated capabilities lies in its coverage of multiple atomic systems. If bosons are like dancers moving in perfect unison, more suitable for building large-scale coherent quantum states, then fermions are more like individuals strictly following rules, better suited for simulating electron behavior in complex materials. By constructing atomic arrays consistent with real material structures, researchers can pre-screen large numbers of invalid solutions, then combine traditional computing and AI models to rapidly identify the most promising material combinations.

Reportedly, Nakai Quantum has already begun engaging with enterprises in semiconductors, materials, and AI-driven drug discovery, with industry becoming the company's next-stage focus. Fan Yaoyuan revealed that the company is advancing R&D of the "Qiyuan-1" general-purpose quantum computer system, targeting 3,000 qubits and two hours of continuous operation by the second half of this year; the "Nakai-2" quantum analog computer for commercial markets is planned for 2027 release, to率先实验 application scenario落地.