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Infleqtion Reports Tiqker Clock Ran More Than Two Weeks at Sea
Infleqtion says its Tiqker optical atomic clock operated continuously aboard the U.S. Navy support vessel RV Merlin for more than two weeks during the Maritime Big Play Pacific exercise. The announcement describes testing in maritime condit
Quantum.world Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
Infleqtion says its Tiqker optical atomic clock operated continuously aboard the U.S. Navy support vessel RV Merlin for more than two weeks during the Maritime Big Play Pacific exercise off Southern California. The company announced the test on October 30, 2026, describing it as a demonstration of precision timing intended to inform future naval integration. The release does not publish figures for clock stability, timing error or navigation accuracy.
RV Merlin carried Tiqker through more than two weeks at sea
The trial also supported BARB-26, a U.S. Navy exercise focused on emerging subsea and seabed warfare capabilities. Infleqtion says Tiqker operated through large temperature swings and sustained vibration. It describes the wider Maritime Big Play Pacific exercise as involving the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and partners from Australia and the United Kingdom, and says the event was sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research & Engineering.
The company said the exercise examined operational conditions above and below the surface and involved manned and unmanned systems. It did not identify which systems used Tiqker’s timing output or provide results from those evaluations. The release describes the trial as an opportunity to evaluate precision timing in a maritime environment and inform future integration; it does not say that the clock was integrated into a navigation system aboard RV Merlin.
Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella said the deployment was intended to gather operational data:
“The Maritime Big Play Pacific and BARB-26 demonstration gives us an opportunity to put Tiqker through sustained testing at sea and gather the operational data needed to advance its integration into naval platforms.”
Matthew Kinsella, CEO of Infleqtion
The announcement describes a timing test, not a navigation score
Tiqker is an optical atomic clock that uses atomic transitions to provide a local timing reference. Infleqtion says it can maintain local timing when GPS signals are unavailable, jammed or spoofed, and that the timing reference can support synchronization of communications, radar and other onboard systems. A clock can provide time to navigation systems, but the company’s announcement does not report that RV Merlin navigated without GPS during this trial.
The release provides no measured stability value, accumulated drift, timing error or comparison with another clock. Its statement that Tiqker operated for over two weeks at sea establishes the reported duration of operation under shipboard conditions, not a measured level of navigation accuracy. The company says the exercise helps demonstrate how precision timing independent of GPS could support naval operations, but gives no specific navigation outcome from the Merlin deployment.
Earlier trials included an uncrewed submarine and an aircraft
Infleqtion says the Merlin demonstration builds on earlier Tiqker trials at sea and in the air. In 2025, the clock operated during multiple dives aboard the Royal Navy’s uncrewed submarine testbed XV Excalibur. The company’s announcement of that trial said performance benchmarking against high-grade time standards would follow; the Merlin release does not provide those benchmarks or comparable figures from the new test.
The company also reported UK flight trials in 2024 aboard QinetiQ’s RJ100 Airborne Technology Demonstrator, in collaboration with QinetiQ and BAE Systems. The current announcement presents the Merlin deployment as another test in operational environments, rather than a report of quantitative performance results. It says data from the sea exercise will inform future naval integration, while leaving the clock’s measured timing performance and any resulting navigation accuracy undisclosed.