Merge pull request #665 from unitaryfund/veena-vee989-patch-2

Create OQD Partnership Announcement

src/content/blog/OQD_Partnership_Announcement.md

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+---
+title: "Unitary Foundation Joins Open Quantum Design as a Prestige Founding Partner"
+author: Veena Vijayakumar
+day: 31
+month: 1
+year: 2025
+tags: 
+  - partnership
+  - community
+---
+
+Unitary Foundation is excited to announce that we are now a partner of Open Quantum Design (OQD), the producer of the world’s first open-source quantum computer. 
+
+Alongside pioneers in the Quantum world including Xanadu, the University of Waterloo, and Haiqu, UF has joined OQD’s platform to launch a new level of open access to full-stack quantum computing technology. 
+
+Open Quantum Design, a Canada-based nonprofit, is working to accelerate quantum research by democratizing quantum computing - breaking down the traditional barriers between academia and industry. Their team is working to accomplish this by opening up both the hardware and software intellectual property for its trapped-ion quantum computer—the first of its kind—to collaborators looking to participate in a global quantum sandbox.
+
+This partnership allows the open source quantum community new opportunities to participate in and benefit from OQD’s novel approach to education and workforce development. By removing traditional barriers and focusing on solutions to hard problems, this highly collaborative approach is well-positioned to speed-up innovation by pooling global quantum expertise.  
+
+OQD’s commitment to democratizing quantum computing, accelerating research, and fueling industry aligns with UF’s continued efforts and initiatives towards creating a quantum technology ecosystem that benefits the most people, including our [benchmarking tool](https://metriq.info/), [research](https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.17233), community engagement through [Discord](https://discord.gg/2Y9z9xKKbr), and public programming such as [UnitaryHACK](https://unitaryhack.dev/). We are looking forward to leveraging this partnership to deepen support for our community and the larger Quantum industry. 
+
+“It is a pleasure to have a quantum heavy hitter like Unitary Foundation signing onto the work of Open Quantum Design,” says entrepreneur and OQD co-founder Greg Dick, “By sharing resources, knowledge, and designs as a global community, we will accelerate the development of quantum technologies. There are researchers and companies all over the world racing towards the realization of a working quantum computer, and what we are providing through this union with UF and our other Prestige Founding Partners is an open platform to scale progress rapidly where people work, build, and innovate together.”
+
+We are thrilled to be joining this initiative and look forward to continuing to grow the open ecosystem with OQD!
+
+![UF_OQD_Partnership](/images/UF_OQD.png)