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    First 100-Qubit Quantum Computer Enters Crowded Race: News in Focus

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    First 100-Qubit Quantum Computer Enters Crowded Race: News in Focus

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    First 100-Qubit Quantum Computer Enters Crowded Race: News in Focus

    Uploaded by

    Pamela Catalán Contreras
    casa

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 1

    News in focus

    University of New South Wales in Sydney,


    Australia, thinks that with 1,000-qubit chips
    such as IBM’s planned Condor, the technology
    might start to prove its worth. “But to do really
    paradigm-shifting stuff, you are going to need
    millions of physical qubits,” he adds.

    Chip challenges
    The Eagle chip has almost twice as many qubits
    as IBM’s previous flagship quantum circuit, the
    65-qubit Hummingbird. The increase required
    the team to solve several engineering prob-
    lems, says Chow. To enable each qubit to inter-
    act with several others, the researchers opted
    for an arrangement in which each is linked to
    two or three neighbours on a hexagonal grid.
    And to allow individual control of each qubit
    without an unmanageable tangle of wires, the
    team placed wires and other components on
    several stacked tiers.
    But the processing power of a quantum

    IBM
    circuit isn’t just about how many qubits it has.
    The innards of an IBM quantum computer show the cables used to control its qubits. It also depends on how fast they operate and
    on how resistant they are to errors that could

    FIRST 100-QUBIT
    scramble a calculation, due for example to ran-
    dom fluctuations. Chow says that there’s still

    QUANTUM COMPUTER
    scope for improvement in all these respects
    for superconducting qubits.

    ENTERS CROWDED RACE


    Dealing with errors is particularly difficult,
    because the laws of physics prevent quantum
    computers from using the error-correcting
    methods of classical machines, which typically
    But IBM’s latest quantum chip and its competitors require keeping multiple copies of each bit.
    Instead, researchers aim to build ‘logical qubits’
    face a long path towards making the machines useful. — in which almost all errors can be identified
    and corrected — from complicated arrange-
    By Philip Ball

    I
    what matters is whether they can execute ments of many physical qubits. The procedures
    their plans,” says quantum information theo- proposed so far typically demand that each
    BM’s newest quantum-computing chip, rist John Preskill at the California Institute of logical qubit contain around 1,000 physical
    revealed on 15 November, established a Technology in Pasadena. qubits, although that ratio depends on the
    milestone of sorts: it packs in 127 quan- intrinsic fidelity — the error-resistance — of
    tum bits (qubits), making it the first such Quantum advantage the physical qubits, says Dzurak.
    device to reach 3 digits. But the achieve- By exploiting the laws of quantum physics to Beyond Condor-level devices, Chow says,
    ment is only one stage in an aggressive agenda process binary information, quantum-com- circuit designs are likely to become modular,
    boosted by billions of dollars in investments puting circuits such as the Eagle chip can with several chips linked through “quantum
    across the industry. already do calculations that can’t easily be sim- interconnects”. It’s not yet clear how best to do
    The ‘Eagle’ chip is a step towards IBM’s goal ulated on classical supercomputers. Google that — perhaps with the microwave-frequency
    of creating a 433-qubit quantum processor famously reported achieving such a ‘quantum signals currently used for data input and out-
    next year, followed by one with 1,121 qubits, advantage’ in 2019 (ref. 1), using qubits made, put to superconducting qubits, or maybe
    named Condor, by 2023. Such targets echo like IBM’s, with superconducting loops. A team by converting the quantum information to
    those that for decades the electronics industry at the University of Science and Technology light-based signals. “It’s an entirely new area
    has set itself for miniaturizing silicon chips, of China (USTC) in Hefei last year reported of research,” says Chow.
    says Jerry Chow, head of IBM’s experimental achieving quantum advantage using optical Many researchers think the first real-world
    quantum-computing group at the Thomas qubits2; this year, it did the same with super- applications of quantum computers are likely
    J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, conducting qubits3. to be in relatively specialized fields, such
    New York. But the tasks these machines were given as simulation of molecules and materials,
    Other companies — including technology were artificial, researchers warn. “No experi- machine learning and optimization problems
    behemoths Google and Honeywell, and a slew ment has demonstrated quantum advantage in industries including finance. To get to that
    of well-funded start-up companies — have for practical tasks yet,” says physicist Chao- stage, “I expect we’ll see gradual improvement
    similarly ambitious plans. Ultimately, they Yang Lu, who co-led the USTC effort. Solving in performance rather than a sudden leap for-
    aim to make quantum computers capable of real-world problems such as simulating drug ward”, says Preskill. “It is likely to be a long slog
    performing certain tasks that are out of reach molecules or materials using quantum chem- before we can run useful applications.”
    of even the largest supercomputers that use istry will require quantum computers to get
    1. Arute, F. et al. Nature 574, 505–510 (2019).
    classical technology. drastically bigger and more powerful. 2. Zhong, H. S. et al. Science 370, 1460–1463 (2020).
    “It’s good to have ambitious goals, but Quantum engineer Andrew Dzurak at the 3. Wu, Y. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 180501 (2021).

    542 | Nature | Vol 599 | 25 November 2021


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