Photonic computing company Xanadu has formed a collaboration with materials engineering firm Applied Materials to develop a 300-mm high-volume-compatible process for building superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs). These TESs are a core component of photon-number-resolving detectors (PNRs), which are key elements that enable the qubit state preparation process in Xanadu's photonic quantum computers. Xanadu, the company said, is shifting its focus towards reducing optical loss throughout different components to achieve fault tolerance. It is also looking ahead to when its quantum computer will be ready to be scaled up to a full-fledged quantum data center. Such scaling will require mass semiconductor manufacturing capabilities of various components, including TESs for PNRs, to reduce production costs and meet the stringent demands on detector performance, quality, and production volume required. Over the next year, the collaborators aim to demonstrate what they said is to be the first 300-mm platform for building TESs for PNRs. Once a basic demonstration of the platform's capabilities is completed toward the end of this year, the Xanadu and Applied Materials teams plan to continue optimizing its performance to meet the demands of high-throughput and high-reliability fabrication before ramping up for mass manufacturing. The collaboration builds on previous work between Xanadu and Applied Materials which focused on materials optimization of TES fabrication processes.