By Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 26 (Reuters) - PsiQuantum said on Wednesday it had cracked one of the crucial challenges in quantum computing: a method to manufacture quantum chips at the volumes needed to build commercially viable machines.

Quantum technology has the potential to perform types of calculations that would stump even the most powerful artificial intelligence systems that use Nvidia NVDA.O chips and could unlock a host of scientific and commercial applications, including cybersecurity. The technology may help in drug discovery and in materials research.

But mass manufacturing of quantum computing chips has been a difficult problem to solve. Seeking a solution, PsiQuantum's founders decided almost 20 years ago to pursue an approach that could be made using photonics, the same semiconductor manufacturing technology widely used in the communications industry.

The company spent ensuing years working closely with chip factories to engineer its chipset, called Omega, which is now ready for production, PsiQuantum Chief Executive Jeremy O'Brien told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

"This isn't a breakthrough, this is actually something that has gone out of the research lab, and that is the highest level of maturity that you can achieve," O'Brien said, referring to bringing a quantum chip to mass production.

The company has partnered with GlobalFoundries GFS.O to fabricate the chips at the latter's Albany, New York, factory.

PsiQuantum's method uses chip industry-standard foot-wide wafers on GlobalFoundries' 45-nanometer process and has achieved manufacturing yields that match standard semiconductors, according to PsiQuantum's Chief Scientific Officer Pete Shadboldt.

"We're right now making millions of them in GlobalFoundries," Shadboldt said.

PsiQuantum published findings related to the mass-manufacture of its Omega quantum chips in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday.

The Palo Alto, California-based company's quantum computing technology manipulates particles of light, or photons, to perform the quantum calculations. The light-based approach has several advantages, such as deploying significantly less complex mechanisms needed to cool its quantum devices, according to O'Brien and Shadboldt.

O'Brien told Reuters in 2023 the company planned to target a commercial quantum computer within six years. He said on Tuesday in the interview the company expects to complete a facility with the ability to perform commercial applications by roughly 2027.

Last week, Microsoft MSFT.O showcased a quantum chip that took a different approach but said that it shows such computers are "years not decades" away. And after a significant breakthrough that Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google announced in December, the search company said earlier this month commercial applications could arrive within five years.

PsiQuantum said in 2023 it had a valuation of $3.15 billion.

(Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

((max.cherney@thomsonreuters.com; 415-404-2697; @chernandburn on Twitter/X))