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New Silicon Chip-Based Quantum Computer Passes Major Test (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Researchers from two teams now working with Intel have reported advances in a new quantum computing architecture, called spin qubits, in a pair of papers out today. They're obviously not the full-purpose quantum computers of the future. But they've got a major selling point over other quantum computing designs. "We made these qubits in silicon chips, similar to what's used in classical computer processes," study author Thomas Watson from TU Delft in the Netherlands told me. "The hope is that by doing things this way, we can potentially scale up to larger numbers needed to perform useful quantum computing."
Today, a research group at TU Delft, called QuTech, announced that they'd successfully tested two "spin qubits." These qubits involve the interaction of two confined electrons in a silicon chip. Each electron has a property called spin, which sort of turns it into a tiny magnet, with two states: "up" and "down." The researchers control the electrons with actual cobalt magnets and microwave pulses. They measure the electron's spins by watching how nearby electric charges react to the trapped electrons' movements. Those researchers, now working in partnership with Intel, were able to perform some quantum algorithms, including the well-known Grover search algorithm (basically, they could search through a list of four things), according to their paper published today in Nature. Additionally, a team of physicists led by Jason Petta at Princeton reported in Nature that they were able to pair light particles, called photons, to corresponding electron spins. This just means that distant spin qubits might be able to talk to one another using photons, allowing for larger quantum computers. There are some advantages to these systems. "Present-day semiconductor technology could create these spin qubits, and they would be smaller than the superconducting chips used by IBM," reports Gizmodo. "Additionally, they stay quantum longer than other systems." The drawbacks include the fact that it's very difficult to measure the spins of these qubits, and even more difficult to get them to interact with each other. UC Berkeley postdoc Sydney Schreppler also mentioned that the qubbits needed to be really close to each other.
Today, a research group at TU Delft, called QuTech, announced that they'd successfully tested two "spin qubits." These qubits involve the interaction of two confined electrons in a silicon chip. Each electron has a property called spin, which sort of turns it into a tiny magnet, with two states: "up" and "down." The researchers control the electrons with actual cobalt magnets and microwave pulses. They measure the electron's spins by watching how nearby electric charges react to the trapped electrons' movements. Those researchers, now working in partnership with Intel, were able to perform some quantum algorithms, including the well-known Grover search algorithm (basically, they could search through a list of four things), according to their paper published today in Nature. Additionally, a team of physicists led by Jason Petta at Princeton reported in Nature that they were able to pair light particles, called photons, to corresponding electron spins. This just means that distant spin qubits might be able to talk to one another using photons, allowing for larger quantum computers. There are some advantages to these systems. "Present-day semiconductor technology could create these spin qubits, and they would be smaller than the superconducting chips used by IBM," reports Gizmodo. "Additionally, they stay quantum longer than other systems." The drawbacks include the fact that it's very difficult to measure the spins of these qubits, and even more difficult to get them to interact with each other. UC Berkeley postdoc Sydney Schreppler also mentioned that the qubbits needed to be really close to each other.
I'm trying to figure out what this means and the best I can get is that they mean that entanglement is preserved for longer? If so, that will certainly be a useful thing for doing any serious quantum computing. At this point though, it seems like we have a lot of different promising architectures for quantum computing but none of them are anywhere near implementation to do the things we seriously care about, like simulating quantum systems or running Shor's algorithm on a serious scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor's_algorithm.
I'm trying to read Slashdot's mobile site (m.slashdot.org) and it just doesn't render in Firefox for Android. I emailed feedback@slashdot.org and didn't even receive the standard automated response. The issue is still going on and began late last night. And no, it's not due to blocking scripts because the settings in my script blocker haven't been changed and I'm still whitelisting the necessary domains. The page is loading in the sense that my browser is getting data from the server, but the rendering is broken so I just get a blank white page. What gives?
Apologies for the off-topic post, but I'm not sure how to get the attention of the editors if my email to feedback@slashdot.org wasn't received.
Hey everybody, finally a new Quantum Computer that actually works* !
*Not really
Neh -- Nature's behind a paywall.
will it run "doom"?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I first read "quantum" as "qualcomm". sigh.. I've seen so many qualcomm related news lately..
... New Silicon Chip-Based Quantum Computer Fails Major Test
'they were able to pair light particles, called photons,'
Thank-you for the clarification. Sheesh!
"...in a pair of papers out today."
But are the papers entangled?
when do we get an RFC for a spooky action network protocol? Way overdue.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.