Quantum Computing Could Make Supercomputer Obsolete In 5 Years

Multilayer microwave integrated quantum circuit (left) uses silicon wafers with features etched using MEMS techniques to create enclosures that serve as high-Q resonators as well as providing shielding. Superconducting metalization (blue) covers the walls of these enclosures to provide low-loss wafer-to-wafer bonding. A cross-section of the rectangular cavity resonator (upper right) shows interlayer aperture coupling between the cavity and transmission lines above. 3D superconducting transmission lines (lower right) could be constructed using membranes (green) in the MEMS structure where qubits and act as a compact low-loss quantum bus.

(Source: Yale)

Next Big Future: Universal Quantum computers could replace supercomputers within 5 years

Some researchers are predicting that the market for "universal" quantum computers that do everything a supercomputer can do plus everything a supercomputer can not do — in a chip that fits in the palm of your hand — are on the verge of emerging. The rise of quantum computing may be as important a shift as John von Neumann's stored program-and-data concept.

Here are some of the scientists and breakthroughs that will enable this shift.

Robert Schoelkopf (Yale, Quantum Circuits inc) claims a number of "world's firsts," the latest of which is the longest "coherence time" for a quantum superposition.

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Update: Quantum Computing on Cusp - Researchers say supercomputer obsolete in 5 years -- EETimes

CSN editor: To me the 5 years is too optimistic .... but the trend lines are that Quantum computers will replace supercomputers in the near future.

The Race To Build Quantum Computers Is Heating Up

Next Big Future: Google, Microsoft, labs and start-ups will create universal quantum computers in 2017 and achieve quantum supremacy over classical computers

Google started working on a form of quantum computing that harnesses superconductivity in 2014. In 2017 or 2018 Google hopes to perform a computation that is beyond even the most powerful ‘classical’ supercomputers — an elusive milestone known as quantum supremacy. Its rival, Microsoft, is betting on an intriguing but unproven concept, topological quantum computing, and hopes to perform a first demonstration of the technology.

The quantum-computing start-up scene is also heating up. Christopher Monroe, co-founded the start-up IonQ in 2015, plans to begin hiring in earnest this year.

Physicist Robert Schoelkopf at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who co-founded the start-up Quantum Circuits, and former IBM applied physicist Chad Rigetti, who set up Rigetti in Berkeley, California, say they expect to reach crucial technical milestones soon.

The largest trapped ion quantum computer with 20 qubits is being tested in an academic lab led by Rainer Blatt at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

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CSN Editor: Both Microsoft and Google are investing heavily in this tech frontier.

Will Future Wars Be Waged Using Quantum Computers?

Zoe Hawkins, National Interest: How to Fight a War With a Quantum Computer

The Australian Government recently announced plans to invest $26 million in the development of quantum computing technology as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda (NISA). Prime Minister Turnbull has argued that NISA is part of a new “ideas boom” designed to “create a modern, dynamic and 21st century economy for Australia.” It emphasizes quantum computing as an important area for government investment based on its ability to produce “jobs and economic growth.” And while this industry could certainly be “worth billions,” it offers much more than financial prosperity: quantum technologies could play a significant role in our future defense and security.

Quantum technology harnesses the obscure properties of subatomic matter to achieve computing processes unobtainable with classic computers. Today’s computers run on binary digits, or bits, which exist as either 1s or 0s. In contrast, quantum bits, or qubits, exploit the bizarre principle of superposition that enables them to occupy all possible states (both 1 and 0) at the same time. This allows quantum computers to undertake multiple calculations in parallel, unlocking unprecedented processing power that could “solve problems that would take conventional computers centuries.”

CSN Editor: This BBC report explains why the Pentagon and the NSA want Quantum computers .... Why Google and the Pentagon want 'quantum computers' (BBC).

One More Step Forward To The Development Of A Quantum Computer

Photo: In this experiment, an atom is sandwiched between mirrors, forming half of the quantum switch. Graphic: Andreas Reiserer, MPQ, Quantum Dynamics Division

Two Big Steps Toward The Quantum Computer -- Popular Mechanics

With lasers and mirrors, researchers develop clever quantum versions of key computer components.

It's a machine that could calculate solutions to problems so impossibly time-consuming that even the most powerful supercomputers could never handle them. And it would do so in an instant. This is the quantum computer, made possible by the bizarre nature of quantum mechanics. And though the idea is still in its infancy, it's no fantasy.

Two research teams, at Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, have just announced that they have independently forged the building blocks for tomorrow's quantum computers. As they published today in the journal Nature (1, 2), the scientists discovered a way to hook up atoms and particles of light to create a new type of switch and logic-gate‚ quantum versions of the connecting structures that link bits of data in modern computers.

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More News On Developments Towards A Quantum Computers

Atom-Photon ‘Switch’ Heralds Quantum Networking Advances -- Time
New “switch” could power quantum computing -- R&D
New ‘switch’ brings scientists one step closer to quantum computing -- Science Recorder
New 'Switch' Could Bring Scientists Closer To Highly-Anticipated Quantum Computing -- HNGN
New Atom And Photon 'Switch' May Bring Quantum Computers Closer to Reality -- Counsel & Heal
Atom-Photon switch: Quantum computing looks closer than ever -- NVO News

Quantum Computers Move One Step Closer

Image Caption: SFU physicist Mike Thewalt and grad student Kamyar Saeedi with a sample of highly isotopically enriched silicon - its unique properties could advance quantum computing. Credit: SFU

Quantum Computers Move One Step Closer -- Red Orbit

The quantum computer is a futuristic machine that could operate at speeds even more mind-boggling than the world’s fastest super-computers.

Research involving physicist Mike Thewalt of Simon Fraser University offers a new step towards making quantum computing a reality, through the unique properties of highly enriched and highly purified silicon.

Quantum computers right now exist pretty much in physicists’ concepts, and theoretical research. There are some basic quantum computers in existence, but nobody yet can build a truly practical one—or really knows how.

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My Comment: Bottom line .... are are still a long way from having a real quantum computer.

Quantum Walkers Have Now Been Created

Quantum computing will revolutionise the speed and performance of computers. Credit: Macquarie University

Quantum Walk Towards New Supercomputers -- Cosmos

LONDON: Quantum walkers, which are single sub-atomic quantum particles that can be made to travel on a two-dimensional grid, have been created in a new step towards quantum walker-based quantum computing.

Imagine trying to isolate a single sub-atomic quantum particle that you can't see, with no mass and no charge, that will readily pop in and out of existence, and then make it travel through a virtual dot-to-dot grid obeying a strict set of rules.

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Creating A Quantum Computer

IBM's 2-D Superconducting Qubit Mounted on a Chip IBM Research via Flickr

How It Would Work: Creating a Quantum Computer -- Popular Science

A working, large-scale quantum computer is still a decade away, but researchers are currently turning a critical corner from theory to building the first small quantum systems.

Silicon semiconductors have taken us a dazzling distance along the computing road. But even if they continue unabated to get faster and more powerful (and it’s growing more difficult to make that happen) there’s a limit to what classical computing can do.

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My Comment: A Quantum computer is still a long way-off .... but we are getting there.

IBM Scientists On Verge Of Creating 'Quantum Computers'

Chip off the old block: A standard silicon chip houses three hi-tech 'qubits'

No Speed Limit: IBM Scientists On Verge Of Creating 'Quantum Computers' Faster Than Any Supercomputer On Earth -- The Daily Mail

* Breakthroughs move technology on 'up to 1000 times'
* Scientists believe working quantum computer will happen within their lifetimes
* Described as 'Holy Grail' of computing
* Quantum computer could crack any encryption

PCs faster than any supercomputer on Earth could become a reality after IBM scientists achieved a breakthrough in ‘quantum computing’ – described as the ‘new frontier’ in computing.

IBM has created working components using the technology - its scientists say the next step is 'creating systems'.

A working quantum computer would be capable of millions of calculations at once – and able to crack any computer code on Earth.

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Explaining Quantum Computing

Image via Wikipedia

MIT's Scott Aaronson Explains Quantum Computing -- Forbes

MIT’s Scott Aaronson, who works with the physics of quantum computing and is a friend of the blog, has a really great, down-to-earth article on quantum computing in the New York Times that I highly recommend reading as a nice primer for what’s possible and what isn’t.

Probably most interesting to me – and I follow quantum computing a lot – is one of the more overlooked aspects of quantum computing, and that’s its application to physics and chemistry research. Here’s a brief snippet.

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CSN Editor: Scott Aaronson's must read New York Times article on quantum computing is here.

Is Quantum Computing Possible?

Qubits in Liquid Helium D-Wave Systems Inc.

MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible -- Popular Science

Scott Aaronson, a scientist at MIT who works mostly with theoretical quantum computers, issued a challenge to all of those deniers out there: prove that "scalable quantum computing is impossible in the physical world," and Aaronson will personally pony up $100,000 to the winner.

Aaronson works with quantum computing theory all day; sounds like he's sick of the constant chatter that quantum computing is not scalable, that the theory is purely theoretical. (Check out our interview with Seth Lloyd for a great beginner's guide to quantum computing.) There are as many skeptics as believers out there, so Aaronson is asking them to step up and prove that quantum computers will never be able to do useful work.

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Breakthrough In The Development Of A Single-Atom Transistor

Physicists Foretell Quantum Computer With Single-Atom Transistor -- Wired Enterprise

Physicists at Purdue University and the University of New South Wales have built a transistor from a single atom of phosphorous precisely placed on a bed of silicon, taking another step towards the holy grail of tech research: the quantum computer.

Revealed on Sunday in the academic journal Nature Nanotechnology, the research is part of a decade-long effort at the University of New South Wales to deliver a quantum computer — a machine that would use the seemingly magical properties of very small particles to instantly perform calculations beyond the scope of today’s classical computers.

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More News On The Development Of A Single-Atom Transistor

Less is more: Scientists create the 'perfect' single-atom transistor in dream computing breakthrough -- Daily Mail
Transistor Made Using a Single Atom May Help Beat Moore's Law -- SFGate/Bloomberg
Transistor made from single atom -- CBC News
Eureka! A single-atom transistor -- Asia One
Single-atom transistor may help beat Moore's Law -- Economic Times
Scientists Shrink Transistor To Size Of Atom -- SKY News
Quantum computing a step closer -- Boston Globe/New York Times
Scientists make 'perfect' single-atom transistor -- News.com.au
Researchers from Purdue and UNSW take a step towards quantum computing -- The Tech Herald
Transistor Made of Single Atom -- Technorati

Quantum Computers Closer to Reality Than Ever

Chip for Quantum Computing The two black squares are the qubits, or processor; the center meandering line is the quantum bus; and the lateral meandering lines are the quantum memory. Erik Lucero

Two Key Advances Bring Quantum Computers Closer to Reality Than Ever -- Popular Science

Researchers on two continents are reporting two big breakthroughs in quantum computing today — a quantum system built on the familiar von Neumann processor-memory architecture, and a working digital quantum simulator built on a quantum-computer platform. Although these developments are still constrained to the lab, they’re yet another sign that a quantum leap in computing may be just around the corner.

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Quantum Leap Towards Computer Of The Future

An artist's impression of a phosphorus atom (a red sphere surrounded by a blue electron cloud) coupled to a silicon single-electron transistor (College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales: William Algar-Chuklin)

From ABC News (Australia):

An Australian-led team of scientists have taken a big step forward in the race to develop a quantum computer.

Quantum computing relies on harnessing the laws of quantum physics - laws that apply to particles smaller than an atom - to get a computer to carry out many calculations at the same time.

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Scientists Develop New 'Photonic' Chip That Could Make Quantum Computers A Reality

Image: Quantum computers will be able to conduct far more complex calculations than current computers

From The Daily Mail:

Scientists have developed a computer chip that could pave the way for a new generation of powerful 'quantum' computers.

The photonic chip, built by scientists from Bristol’s Centre for Quantum Photonics, uses light rather than electricity to pass information.

The breakthrough could lead to 'quantum' computers capable of performing complex calculations and simulations that are impossible for today's computers.

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Team's Quantum Object Is Biggest By Factor Of Billions

Image: The "quantum resonator" can be seen with the naked eye

From The BBC:

Researchers have created a "quantum state" in the largest object yet.

Such states, in which an object is effectively in two places at once, have until now only been accomplished with single particles, atoms and molecules.

In this experiment, published in the journal Nature, scientists produced a quantum state in an object billions of times larger than previous tests.

The team says the result could have significant implications in quantum computing.

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Quantum Computing Thrives On Chaos

From Wired/Science News:

Embracing chaos just might help physicists build a quantum brain. A new study shows that disorder can enhance the coupling between light and matter in quantum systems, a find that could eventually lead to fast, easy-to-build quantum computers.

Quantum computers promise superfast calculations that precisely simulate the natural world, but physicists have struggled to design the brains of such machines. Some researchers have focused on designing precisely engineered materials that can trap light to harness its quantum properties. To work, scientists have thought, the crystalline structure of these materials must be flawlessly ordered — a nearly impossible task.

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Diamond Nanowire Device Could Lead To New Class Of Diamond Nanomaterials

A diamond-based nanowire device. Researchers used a top-down nanofabrication technique to embed color centers into a variety of machined structures. By creating large device arrays rather than just "one-of-a-kind" designs, the realization of quantum networks and systems, which require the integration and manipulation of many devices in parallel, is more likely. (Credit: Illustrated by Jay Penni.)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 15, 2010) — By creating diamond-based nanowire devices, a team at Harvard has taken another step towards making applications based on quantum science and technology possible.

The new device offers a bright, stable source of single photons at room temperature, an essential element in making fast and secure computing with light practical.

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Quantum Computing Leap Forward: Altering a Lone Electron Without Disturbing Its Neighbors

Jason Petta, an assistant professor of physics, has found a way to alter the property of a lone electron without disturbing the trillions of electrons in its immediate surroundings. Such a feat is an important step toward developing future types of quantum computers. (Credit: Princeton University, Office of Communications, Brian Wilson)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 6, 2010) — A major hurdle in the ambitious quest to design and construct a radically new kind of quantum computer has been finding a way to manipulate the single electrons that very likely will constitute the new machines' processing components or "qubits."

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Two More Steps Toward Quantum Computing

The first solid state quantum processor, developed at Yale University, can perform simple algorithms. Blake Johnson/Yale University

From Discover Magazine:

Quantum computing—using individual atoms as information carriers—could transform the way we study the world, solving problems that would take many human lifetimes for today’s supercomputers in a matter of days. Unlike conventional computers, which store each piece of data as a single value (either zero or one), quantum processors can take on multiple values simultaneously, which is why they are so efficient. Or rather why they would be, if we could figure out how to build them. So engineers in the field are abuzz about two major advances toward the creation of a practical quantum computer.

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Quantum Computer Successfully Calculates Exact Energy Of Molecular Hydrogen

Cepheus B, a Molecular Hydrogen Cloud Try modeling the molecular hydrogen in this cloud with a conventional computer. Go ahead, we'll wait. NASA

From Popular Science:

Researchers at Harvard and the University of Queensland have come up with a novel, just-crazy-enough-to-work method for modeling and simulating quantum systems: use a quantum computer. Employing the superior computing power of a custom-built quantum computing system, the researchers were able to determine the precise energy of molecular hydrogen for the first time, an impossible feat using classical computing methods. By doing so, they've opened the box on what could be a computing breakthrough stretching across disciplines.

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