A team of engineers, physicists and computer specialists at Canadian company, Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., has unveiled what they describe as the world’s first scalable, connected, photonic quantum computer prototype.

In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they designed and built their modularized quantum computer, and how it can be easily scaled to virtually any desired size.

As scientists around the world continue to work toward the development of a truly useful quantum computer, makers of such machines continue to come up with design ideas. In this new effort, the research team built a quantum computer based on a modular design. Their idea was to build a single basic box using just a few qubits for the simplest of applications. As the need arises, another box can be added, then another and another—with all the boxes working together like a network, as a single computer.