Founder & board member
Technical advisor
Warit Asavanant
Warit Asavanant
Technical advisor
Warit Asavanant
Warit Asavanant
Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo.
He arrived in Japan from Thailand in 2011 and pursued studies under Professor Akira Furusawa at The University of Tokyo, conducting research on optical quantum computers from undergraduate to doctoral levels. After completing his doctorate, he was appointed as an assistant professor in the same laboratory.
His area of expertise is large-scale quantum entanglement generation, which serves as the processor for optical quantum computers. In 2019, he demonstrate the first generation of a universal quantum entanglement known as a two-dimensional cluster state for quantum processors.
He received the Tokyo University Department of Applied Physics Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award (Shoji Tanaka Award) in 2018 and the Ando Incentive Prize for the Study of Electronics Award in 2022. He was also awarded Innovators Under 35 Japan by MIT Technology Review.
Representative Director and CEO
Kan Takase
Kan Takase
Representative Director and CEO
Kan Takase
Kan Takase
After obtaining a Ph.D. in Engineering from the Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, he served as an assistant professor in the same department. From his student days through his tenure as an assistant professor, he was part of the Furusawa Laboratory, where he devised methods for high-rate generation of quantum bits and demonstrated techniques for freely controlling quantum light pulses. In September 2024, he left The University of Tokyo and co-founded OptQC with Warit Asavanant and Akira Furusawa.
Director
Akira Furusawa
Furusawa Akira
Director
Akira Furusawa
Furusawa Akira
Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo.
Deputy Director of the Quantum Computing Center (RQC), RIKEN.
In 1998, he successfully achieved deterministic quantum teleportation for the first time in the world at the California Institute of Technology. Since then, he has been conducting research on optical quantum computers at The University of Tokyo for over 20 years. Notably, after inventing a method to build optical quantum computers using quantum teleportation in 2013, he has become a global leader in the field of optical quantum computer research.
His motto: "My main profession is windsurfing; research is my hobby."
Recipient of the Medal with Purple Ribbon in autumn 2016.
Director
Hidehiro Yonezawa
Hidehiro Yonezawa
Director
Hidehiro Yonezawa
Hidehiro Yonezawa
Team Leader of the Quantum Optical Control Research Team at the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing (RQC).
He earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from the Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, in 2007. Subsequently he served as an assistant professor and lecturer in the same department. From September 2013 to June 2023, he worked as a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Australia, before assuming his current position in July 2023.
His areas of expertise include quantum information, quantum optics experiments, quantum control, and quantum estimation. He was awarded the Young Scientists’ Prize by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2014.
Company Profile
Company name
OptQC Corp.
Founding
September 2, 2024
Executive team
CEO Kan Takase
Director Akira Furusawa
Director Hidehiro YonezawaBusiness content
Development and sale of optical quantum computers
News/Media
Media
An interview article was published in “NIKKEI Tech Foresight.”
News
Warit won the Innovators Under 35 Japan 2024 award.
News
OptQC was selected as the 11th supporter of “1stRound,” an entrepreneurship support program co-hosted by academia, which boasts the largest scale in Japan.