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Researchers Find New Way To Build Quantum Computers (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Researchers in Australia have found a new way to build quantum computers which they say would make them dramatically easier and cheaper to produce at scale. Quantum computers promise to harness the strange ability of subatomic particles to exist in more than one state at a time to solve problems that are too complex or time-consuming for existing computers. The team from the University of New South Wales say they have invented a new chip design based on a new type of quantum bit, the basic unit of information in a quantum computer, known as a qubit. The new design would allow for a silicon quantum processor to overcome two limitations of existing designs: the need for atoms to be placed precisely, and allowing them to be placed further apart and still be coupled. Crucially, says project leader Andrea Mello, this so-called "flip-flop qubit" means the chips can be produced using the same device technology as existing computer chips.

53 comments

  1. Researchers find new way to build quantum computer by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Funny

    Turns out, you can do that with LEGO bricks!

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  2. Reseacrhers find new way to extract by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    VC funding money, news at 11. We now return you to creimer with his next affiliate spam shitposting.

  3. They put a cat inside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe they did, and maybe they didn't.

    1. Re:They put a cat inside? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Actually - they did and didn't at the same time.

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    2. Re: They put a cat inside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      just don't look!

    3. Re:They put a cat inside? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People will keep on using Schrödinger's Cat as an example of the Copenhagen interpretation, despite that thought experiment being specifically intended to show how ludicrous that interpretation of QM is.

  4. Reuse the cardboard boxes by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    >> (Delivers heavy box with "Quantum Computer" printed on the outside.) Here's your new quantum computer!

    How can I be sure it works?

    >> That's what our Global Services are for. Gotta go!

    1. Re:Reuse the cardboard boxes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't know it was an IBM product..send it back...send it back NOW>

    2. Re:Reuse the cardboard boxes by shaitand · · Score: 1

      You need to let go of this classical thinking as you move into the quantum world. You want to think this either works or it doesn't work but currently this quantum bit flip flop is in an excited quantum state where it both works and doesn't work at the same time. If they were to build it and then observe the result only then would the entangled devices produced all fix into a single state of either working or not working.

    3. Re:Reuse the cardboard boxes by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      Well it might work best if they don't try to turn it on.

      --
      Time to offend someone
  5. It's easy, really. by grub · · Score: 1


    Building a quantum computer is easy, you just need to find a reliable source of quantums from which to build.

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    1. Re:It's easy, really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      kek

    2. Re:It's easy, really. by shaitand · · Score: 1

      There is a dark corner in my attic where the rats are both dead and not dead at the same time.

    3. Re:It's easy, really. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Seems your cat sucks?

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    4. Re:It's easy, really. by sheph · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That, or Schrodinger's cat allows for Schrodinger's rats.

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      I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
    5. Re:It's easy, really. by omnichad · · Score: 1

      As dumb as it is to reply, I still have to say that the plural of quantum is quanta.

  6. Re:Researchers find new way to build quantum compu by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's no way of knowing if one's been left on the floor until you stand on it.

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  7. Re:It sounds good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck off, there's a good chap.

  8. tl;dr paper not published yet so puff piece by mattr · · Score: 1

    see subject

    1. Re:tl;dr paper not published yet so puff piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree the article is an entirely useless puff piece, but a paper has been published, just not peer reviewed. However, I am entirely unable to decipher the paper, so it could be useless too.

      BTW, no on here reads the subjects. Why not put what you want to say, where you say things instead of "see subject"? Doing what you did seems totally silly. I guess it a Reddit thing?

  9. To return to the topic... by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

    From what I've read, they have an idea, but they haven't actually built one of these yet.

    So this is - at present anyway - just handwaving.

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    1. Re:To return to the topic... by Megol · · Score: 1

      Hate to break this to you but that's how things work. Do you think your modern computer just jumped out perfected from the sweat of the giant Ymir?

      Theory first - practice later. Just doing things without theoretical background is generally a waste of time and money (with a few exceptions).

    2. Re:To return to the topic... by sheph · · Score: 1

      That's true. But it's hard to get excited just yet. Until the theory is proven it's just another theory. Not insignificant. But not proven success either.

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    3. Re:To return to the topic... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Do you think your modern computer just jumped out perfected from the sweat of the giant Ymir?

      Sure, but how many discarded theories went by the wayside on the way to the modern computer? Odds are long for any new theory to pan out in the end. I agree that it will be far more interesting when they demonstrate something. IBM and Microsoft have real, honest to goodness quantum computers working right now - and are apparently on track to get the qubit count up to useful levels.

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    4. Re:To return to the topic... by lactose99 · · Score: 1

      Sure, but how many discarded theories went by the wayside on the way to the modern computer?

      Dunno, I'm still waiting for 640k to be enough for anybody.

      --
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    5. Re:To return to the topic... by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Hate to break this to you but that's how things work. Do you think your modern computer just jumped out perfected from the sweat of the giant Ymir?

      Theory first - practice later. Just doing things without theoretical background is generally a waste of time and money (with a few exceptions).

      I hate to break it to you, but I first read about IBM reaching this stage of qubits in a magazine in the mid-nineties. I've been waiting ever since.

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    6. Re:To return to the topic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I first read about IBM reaching this stage of qubits in a magazine in the mid-nineties. I've been waiting ever since.

      The NSA hasn't. :-P

      But for the rest of us, there's the 25 year edition of the ThinkAndThinkNotPad coming out soon. :-)

    7. Re:To return to the topic... by Megol · · Score: 1

      Yes? Don't see how that's relevant? The thing I protested against was the implication that this was just handwaving because they hadn't done physical circuits. This is much more than basic theory as they have simulated systems and tried to make it something that _can_ be manufactured and tested.

      One shouldn't get excited yet but that doesn't imply the research is just hand waving.

    8. Re:To return to the topic... by Megol · · Score: 1

      Yes but do you think they (or others) would get funding and/or sponsoring to try out a new idea (which it AFAIK genuinely is) without doing the basic research first?

      Manufacturing chips is expensive especially if one can't use a normal shuttle run, one have to have sponsors to pay for it.

    9. Re:To return to the topic... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Agreed, and it's notable that this group hasn't gotten any funding to make hardware - if that's even a goal for them. I don't think anyone is saying this work isn't a good thing - it's just a little premature to call it "news" when it is much more likely to be a dead-end.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    10. Re:To return to the topic... by Megol · · Score: 1

      That I can agree with!

  10. Quickest, cheapest way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By press release!

  11. Boxes by Dan+East · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought this was going to involve cats in boxes.

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    1. Re:Boxes by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

      I think they replaced the cat with an Electron. :)

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      [($)]
    2. Re:Boxes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I think they replaced the cat with an Electron. :)

      Also known as Catbits. ;-)

  12. Crikey! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Leave it to the Australians to turn the field of Quantum Computing on its head!

  13. Re:Researchers find new way to build quantum compu by tomhath · · Score: 1

    There's no way of knowing if one's been left on the floor until you stand on it.

    Kind of like having a dog...

  14. More info by hord · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.eurekalert.org/pub...

    It sounds like what they did is change from magnetic controls to electric controls for manipulating and reading the quantum state of a phosphorous atom. Apparently they can use an electron to actuate spin changes which ripple to the P atom and allow for larger coupling distances. I'm guessing this is what allows them to more easily embed the qubit in silicon. Interesting but I'd still like to see a prototype.

    1. Re:More info by UperPoti · · Score: 1

      Movie P.S. Anyone able to recommend a bank that offers an app with Post quantum cryptography?

    2. Re:More info by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately lattice-based cryptography is hard to do right and if you screw it up it becomes really easy to break. I don't know much beyond the hand waving level about it but it wouldn't surprise me if we see it start to be incorporated into things in the next few years now that the patent on NTRUEncrypt has expired. The problem is that more effort needs to be spent on attacking and proving its security it as the world of cryptography is very conservative.

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      Time to offend someone
    3. Re:More info by Megol · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should wait until there is at least a theoretical possibility to build a quantum computer capable of breaking standard encryption? We are _far_ away from that point.

  15. Re: It sounds good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is what Creimer has started. People visit slashdot see blatant spam. Now everyone wants to post their spam to make the extra moneyZ. We need to downmod all blatant spam.

  16. Re:Researchers find new way to build quantum compu by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Pain is the Lego Computer's I/O channel.

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  17. FYI paper already published... by slew · · Score: 2

    FYI paper already published. Here's the final paper link , and the pre-print...

    Abstract

    Practical quantum computers require a large network of highly coherent qubits, interconnected in a design robust against errors. Donor spins in silicon provide state-of-the-art coherence and quantum gate fidelities, in a platform adapted from industrial semiconductor processing. Here we present a scalable design for a silicon quantum processor that does not require precise donor placement and leaves ample space for the routing of interconnects and readout devices. We introduce the flip-flop qubit, a combination of the electron-nuclear spin states of a phosphorus donor that can be controlled by microwave electric fields. Two-qubit gates exploit a second-order electric dipole-dipole interaction, allowing selective coupling beyond the nearest-neighbor, at separations of hundreds of nanometers, while microwave resonators can extend the entanglement to macroscopic distances. We predict gate fidelities within fault-tolerance thresholds using realistic noise models. This design provides a realizable blueprint for scalable spin-based quantum computers in silicon.

    Of course they haven't built it yet, so you never know...

    1. Re:FYI paper already published... by mikael · · Score: 1

      Then some smartass post grad will discover you can do all of that with the thermal noise of the electrons going through the silicon and than all you then needed was a pure source of randomness and that could be achieved by placing a USB cable into a hot cup of coffee. Confounding the senior big-science researchers who had been trying to solve that problem for decades.

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  18. STOP AND READ BEFORE MAKING A JOKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A quantum mechanics superposition joke has already been made in the thread. Please refrain from telling this joke for the billionth time.

    1. Re:STOP AND READ BEFORE MAKING A JOKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A quantum mechanics superposition joke has already been made in the thread. Please refrain from telling this joke for the billionth time.

      Actually, the joke was made and not ma... err.. sorry.

  19. Re:Researchers find new way to build quantum compu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Turns out, you can do that with LEGO bricks!

    It's wallabies all the way down.

  20. Re:Researchers find new way to build quantum compu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's no way of knowing if one's been left on the floor until you stand on it.

    What?
    There's ALWAYS one left on the floor. Always.

  21. When we can build them at home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And no network or wires are needed all your bases are belong to us.

  22. Symmetric algorithms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Note that it's only asymmetric encryption algorithms like RSA that are easily broken with a quantum computer; symmetric algorithms like DSA are still safe. So for very important systems like eg online banks, you could resort to sending a 2048-bit cryptographic key on a USB pen drive via the postal system, use a symmetric algorithm for the handshake.