Quantum computers could revolutionize the way we tackle problems that stump even the best classical computers.
Single atom transistor recently introduced has been seen as a tool that could lead the way to building a quantum computer. For general introduction how quantum computer work, read A tale of two qubits: how quantum computers work article.
D-Wave Announces Commercially Available Quantum Computer article tells that computing company D-Wave has announced that they’re selling a quantum computing system commercially, which they’re calling the D-Wave One. D-Wave system comes equipped with a 128-qubit processor that’s designed to perform discrete optimization operations. The processor uses quantum annealing to perform these operations.
D-Wave is advertisting a number of different applications for its quantum computing system, primarily in the field of artificial intelligence. According to the company, its system can handle virtually any AI application that can be translated to a Markov random field.
Learning to program the D-Wave One blog article tells that the processor in the D-Wave One – codenamed Rainier – is designed to perform a single mathematical operation called discrete optimization. It is a special purpose processor. When writing applications the D-Wave One is used only for the steps in your task that involve solving optimization problems. All the other parts of your code still run on your conventional systems of choice. Rainier solves optimization problems using quantum annealing (QA), which is a class of problem solving approaches that use quantum effects to help get better solutions, faster. Learning to program the D-Wave One is the first in a series of blog posts describing the algorithms we have run on D-Wave quantum computers, and how to use these to build interesting applications.
But is this the start of the quantum computers era? Maybe not. D-Wave Announces Commercially Available Quantum Computer article comments tell a story that this computer might not be the quantum computer you might be waiting for. It seem that the name “quantum computer” is a bit misleading for this product. There are serious controversies around the working and “quantumness” of the machine. D-Wave has been heavily criticized by some scientists in the quantum computing field. First sale for quantum computing article tells that uncertainty persists around how the impressive black monolith known as D-Wave One actually works. Computer scientists have long questioned whether D-Wave’s systems truly exploit quantum physics on their products.
Slashdot article D-Wave Announces Commercially Available Quantum Computer comments tell that this has the same central problem as before. D-Wave’s computers haven’t demonstrated that their commercial bits are entangled. There’s no way to really distinguish what they are doing from essentially classical simulated annealing. Recommended reading that is skeptical of D-Wave’s claims is much of what Scott Aaronson has wrote about them. See for example http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=639, http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=198 although interestingly after he visited D-Wave’s labs in person his views changed slightly and became slightly more sympathetic to them http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954.
So it is hard to say if the “128 qubits” part is snake oil or for real. If the 128 “qubits” aren’t entangled at all, which means it is useless for any of the quantum algorithms that one generally thinks of. It seem that this device simply has 128 separate “qubits” that are queried individually, and is, essentially an augmented classical computer that gains a few minor advantages in some very specific algorithms (i.e. the quantum annealing algorithm) due to this qubit querying, but is otherwise indistinguishable from a really expensive classical computer for any other purpose. This has the same central problem as before: D-Wave’s computers haven’t demonstrated that their commercial bits are entangled.
Rather than constantly adding more qubits and issuing more hard-to-evaluate announcements, while leaving the scientific characterization of its devices in a state of limbo, why doesn’t D-Wave just focus all its efforts on demonstrating entanglement, or otherwise getting stronger evidence for a quantum role in the apparent speedup? There’s a reason why academic quantum computing groups focus on pushing down decoherence and demonstrating entanglement in 2, 3, or 4 qubits: because that way, at least you know that the qubits are qubits! Suppose D-Wave were marketing a classical, special-purpose, $10-million computer designed to perform simulated annealing, for 90-bit Ising spin glass problems with a certain fixed topology, somewhat better than an off-the-shelf computing cluster. Would there be even 5% of the public interest that there is now?
1,156 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kahden kubitin portti FINfet-transistorissa
https://www.nanobitteja.fi/uutiset.html?236364
Tomi Engdahl says:
Baselin yliopiston ja NCCR SPIN:n tutkijat ovat saavuttaneet ensimmäisen ohjattavan vuorovaikutuksen kahden aukko-spin -kubitin välillä tavanomaisessa piitransistorissa. Universaali kvanttilaskenta vaatii sekä yhden kubitin ohjauksen että kahden kubitin vuorovaikutuksia.
Saavutettu läpimurto avaa mahdollisuuden integroida miljoonia tällaisia kubitteja yhdelle sirulle nykyisiä valmistusprosesseja käyttäen.
Nämä tutkijat luottavat kubittityyppiin, joka käyttää elektronin tai aukon spiniä (sisäistä kulmamomenttia). Sekä aukoilla että elektroneilla on spin, joka voi ottaa yhden kahdesta tilasta: ylös tai alas. Elektronin spiniin verrattuna aukon spinin etuna on, että sitä voidaan ohjata kokonaan sähköisesti ilman, että sirulle tarvitaan lisäkomponentteja, kuten mikromagneetteja.
https://www.nanobitteja.fi/uutiset.html?236364
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pseudomagic quantum states: A path to quantum supremacy
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-pseudomagic-quantum-states-path-supremacy.html
A new study in Physical Review Letters (PRL) introduces the concept of pseudomagic quantum states, which appear to have high stabilizerness (or complexity) and can move us closer to achieving quantum supremacy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Physicists confirm quantum entanglement persists between top quarks, the heaviest known fundamental particles
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-physicists-quantum-entanglement-persists-quarks.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2024/06/18/kilpailutus-isommasta-kvanttikoneesta/
VTT vauhdittaa kilpailutuksella seuraavan kvanttitietokoneeseen hankintaa. Samalla selvitetään kvanttikoneen mahdollisuuksia erikoistua materiaalien suunnitteluun ja kehittämiseen. Tulossa on 300 kubitin kvanttitietokone esimerkiksi materiaalitutkimukseen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum computers are like kaleidoscopes: Why unusual metaphors help illustrate science and technology
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-quantum-kaleidoscopes-unusual-metaphors-science.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://studyfinds.org/quantum-computing-breakthrough/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kvanttidataa lähettiin kuidussa ensimmäistä kertaa
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16358-kvanttidataa-laehettiin-kuidussa-ensimmaeistae-kertaa
Kvanttitietokoneiden kehittyessä yksi tutkimuksen aiheita on se, miten kvanttikoneiden dataa voisi lähettää internetissä. Tällä hetkellä kvanttitieto on epävakaata, pitkien etäisyyksien päässä ja kvanttibitit eli kubitit katoavat helposti tai pirstoutuvat lähetyksen aikana.
Klassisia bittejä lähetetään nykyään valopulsseina kuituoptisten kaapeleiden yli. Signaaleja vahvistetaan toistimilla matkan varrella. Jotta kubitteja voisi lähettää samalla tavoin, tarvitaan laitteita, verkon yli riippumatta siitä, kuinka pitkälle datan on kuljettava.
Tällaisia laitteita on tutkittu Lontoon Imperial Collegessa, Southamptonin yliopistossa sekä Stuttgartin ja Wurzburgin yliopistoissa Saksassa. Tutkijat väittävät nyt lähettäneensä kubitteja ensimmäistä kertaa tavallisten valokuitukaapeleiden yli. Tulokset on julkaistu Scientific Advances -lehdessä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why every quantum computer will need a powerful classical computer
Error-correcting a quantum computer can mean processing 100TB every second.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/why-every-quantum-computer-will-need-a-powerful-classical-computer/
Error detection vs. the data
All qubits are fragile, tending to lose their state during operations, or simply over time. No matter what the technology—cold atoms, superconducting transmons, whatever—these error rates put a hard limit on the amount of computation that can be done before an error is inevitable. That rules out doing almost every useful computation operating directly on existing hardware qubits.
The generally accepted solution to this is to work with what are called logical qubits. These involve linking multiple hardware qubits together and spreading the quantum information among them. Additional hardware qubits are linked in so that they can be measured to monitor errors affecting the data, allowing them to be corrected. It can take dozens of hardware qubits to make a single logical qubit, meaning even the largest existing systems can only support about 50 robust logical qubits.
Riverlane’s founder and CEO, Steve Brierley, told Ars that error correction doesn’t only stress the qubit hardware; it stresses the classical portion of the system as well. Each of the measurements of the qubits used for monitoring the system needs to be processed to detect and interpret any errors. We’ll need roughly 100 logical qubits to do some of the simplest interesting calculations, meaning monitoring thousands of hardware qubits. Doing more sophisticated calculations may mean thousands of logical qubits.
That error-correction data (termed syndrome data in the field) needs to be read between each operation, which makes for a lot of data. “At scale, we’re talking a hundred terabytes per second,” said Brierley. “At a million physical qubits, we’ll be processing about a hundred terabytes per second, which is Netflix global streaming.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multiple governments around the world have secretly agreed to restrict the export of quantum computers
News
By Nick Evanson published 8 July 2024
The move has stumped the scientific community as there’s no obvious reason for it.
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/multiple-governments-around-the-world-have-secretly-agreed-to-restrict-the-export-of-quantum-computers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using artificial intelligence to make quantum computers a reality
https://www.earth.com/news/using-artificial-intelligence-ai-to-make-quantum-computers-reality/
Have you ever considered the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to unlock the secrets of advanced quantum computing?
This once seemingly impossible feat may soon become a reality, as suggested by new research from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.
AI and quantum computing noise
The research, published in the prestigious Physical Review Research journal, presents a fascinating and important concept.
It indicates AI’s remarkable potential to process and resolve quantum errors, which are famously termed as ‘qubit noise’.
Now, why do these quantum errors matter so much in the universe of quantum computing?
This noise, which arises from various sources such as environmental interference and imperfections in the quantum system, apparently is the largest hurdle in transitioning quantum computers from being purely experimental devices to practical, everyday tools.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists beat supercomputers with quantum tech that simulates electron motion
Researchers have successfully simulated the complex behavior of electrons in a solid-state material using a quantum computer.
https://interestingengineering.com/science/china-quantum-device-simulating-electrons
Tomi Engdahl says:
New quantum computer smashes ‘quantum supremacy’ record by a factor of 100 — and it consumes 30,000 times less power
News
By Keumars Afifi-Sabet published July 11, 2024
The 56-qubit H2-1 computer has broken the previous record in the ‘quantum supremacy’ benchmark first set by Google in 2019.
https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/new-quantum-computer-smashes-quantum-supremacy-record-by-a-factor-of-100-and-it-consumes-30000-times-less-power
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum computing breakthrough achieved with on-chip pulse generator
The existing methods for readout and manipulation of qubits are both cost-intensive and cumbersome.
https://interestingengineering.com/science/quantum-computing-cryogenic-pulse-generator
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2024/08/12/jaahdyttavia-mikrosysteemeja-kvanttitietokoneisiin/
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16463-suomalaiset-mukana-kehittaemaessae-kubittien-ja-jaeaehdytyksen-rajapintaa
Tomi Engdahl says:
US firm plans to build 10,000 qubit quantum computer by 2026
The first fault-tolerant quantum computer could be unveiled before the year end, marking an important milestone in the field
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/10000-qubit-quantum-computer-2026
Boston-based QuEra Computing has ambitious plans to launch a 10,000 qubit quantum computer by 2026, which could beat the fastest supercomputers. In a press release, the company has unveiled its roadmap for the near future, including a new machine with 10 logical qubits by the end of the year.
Quantum computers are the next frontier of computing that can theoretically leave today’s supercomputers biting the dust. However, scientists have yet to solve the problem of high error rates in them. While silicon-based computers err at the rate of one in one billion bits, quantum computers can have one failure in every 1,000 quantum bits (qubits) they use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum computers are advancing much faster than scientists expected
Breakthroughs in scalability, error-correction and infrastructure have led to an accelerated timeline for quantum advantage.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/quantum-computers-advancing-much-faster-scientists-expected
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16510-aalto-yliopiston-tutkimus-auttaa-kehittaemaeaen-tehokkaampia-kubitteja
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2024/08/23/lapimurto-kubittien-energiahavioiden-mittaamiseen/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum Entanglement in Your Brain Is What Generates Consciousness, Radical Study Suggests
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a61854962/quantum-entanglement-consciousness/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists Fed the Fibonacci Sequence Into a Quantum Computer and Something Strange Happened
https://futurism.com/the-byte/fibonacci-quantum-computer
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16510-aalto-yliopiston-tutkimus-auttaa-kehittaemaeaen-tehokkaampia-kubitteja
Tomi Engdahl says:
US achieves superconductor breakthrough, creates new material for quantum leap
The researchers were able to create high-quality low-loss microwave resonators, critical components of quantum computing.
https://interestingengineering.com/science/us-achieves-superconductor-breakthrough-quantum-leap
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2024/09/17/piipohjainen-kvanttibitti-voisi-helpottaa-kvanttitietokoneen-rakentamista/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum computers join the list of devices capable of running DOOM with Quandoom, Luke Mortimer’s port of the first level of the game.
You can play it on PC: https://80.lv/articles/doom-can-now-run-on-quantum-computers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese Scientists Report Using Quantum Computer to Hack Military-grade Encryption
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/10/11/chinese-scientists-report-using-quantum-computer-to-hack-military-grade-encryption/
Chinese researchers, using a D-Wave quantum computer, claim to have executed what they are calling the first successful quantum attack on widely used encryption algorithms, posing a “real and substantial threat” to sectors like banking and the military, as reported by SCMP.
The D-Wave Advantage, initially designed for non-cryptographic applications, was used to breach SPN-structured algorithms but has not yet cracked specific passcodes, highlighting the early-stage nature of this threat.
Despite the advance, the researchers acknowledge limitations such as environmental interference, underdeveloped hardware and the inability to develop a single attack method for multiple encryption systems still hinder quantum computing’s full cryptographic potential.
According to SCMP, the research team employed the D-Wave Advantage quantum computer to target the Present, Gift-64, and Rectangle algorithms, called key representatives of the Substitution-Permutation Network (SPN) structure. This structure is foundational for advanced encryption standards (AES), a system widely deployed in military and financial encryption protocols, according to the newspaper. While AES-256 is often labeled as military-grade and considered the most secure encryption standard available, the study suggests that quantum computers may soon threaten such security.
“This is the first time that a real quantum computer has posed a real and substantial threat to multiple full-scale SPN structured algorithms in use today,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.dna.fi/yrityksille/blogi/-/blogs/aloita-yrityksesi-siirtyma-kvanttisalaukseen-jo-tanaan?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=LAA-artikkeli-aloita-yrityksesi-siirtyma-kvanttisalaukseen-jo-tanaan&utm_campaign=AK_LAA_24-40-43_kyberturva2025_artikkelikampanja_&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0BMAABHYwVOMnd5Oss2ZdhPxKhWILiyV0BhUlbiqN-3r5uUgOoWsOcHI9rQg_IAw_aem_j4FIkBvcwvcOBEMYtSdc8A
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tekoälyhypen taustalla muhii jo seuraava teknologinen murros, josta alaa seuraava sijoittaja voi hyötyä – ”Kyllä se sieltä tulee, kysymys on siitä, miten nopeasti”
Kvanttilaskennan arvioidaan olevan yksi seuraavista teknologisista murroksista. Noustessaan täyteen potentiaaliin kvanttilaskennan avulla on mahdollisuus tehostaa toimintoja ja nostaa elintasoa lähes kaikilla aloilla.
https://www.arvopaperi.fi/uutiset/tekoalyhypen-taustalla-muhii-jo-seuraava-teknologinen-murros-josta-alaa-seuraava-sijoittaja-voi-hyotya-kylla-se-sielta-tulee-kysymys-on-siita-miten-nopeasti/995b212b-98eb-4bdb-b3c6-1ee995507618
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum ‘Schrödinger’s cat’ survives for a stunning 23 minutes
A typically fragile quantum superposition has been made to last exceptionally long, and could eventually be used as a probe for discovering new physics
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2453356-quantum-schrodingers-cat-survives-for-a-stunning-23-minutes/
Quantum superpositions are typically fragile and fleeting, but one such state has now been maintained for a record-breaking 23 minutes. Keeping quantum states stable for this long could help make more robust quantum devices, or lead to discoveries of strange new effects in quantum physics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16817-timanttiin-ja-spiniin-perustuva-kvanttibitti-on-paljon-vakaampi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft and Atom Computing plan to ship quantum computers with 1,000+ physical qubits to enterprises in 2025 and detail a 24 entangled logical qubits record
Microsoft and Atom Computing will launch a commercial quantum computer in 2025
https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/19/microsoft-and-atom-computing-will-launch-a-commercial-quantum-computer-in-2025/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matt Swayne / The Quantum Insider:
Google researchers introduce AlphaQubit, a machine-learning decoder that surpasses existing methods in identifying and correcting quantum computing errors — – Google researchers introduced AlphaQubit, an AI-powered decoder that improves quantum error correction, reducing errors by 6% compared …
AI Power For Quantum Errors: Google Develops AlphaQubit to Identify, Correct Quantum Errors
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/11/20/ai-power-for-quantum-errors-google-develops-alphaqubit-to-identify-correct-quantum-errors/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists Crack Quantum Computing Complexity With Revolutionary Hybrid Design
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-crack-quantum-computing-complexity-with-revolutionary-hybrid-design/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM entangled two quantum chips to work together for the first time
IBM has bet big on a modular approach to building quantum computers, and now it has successfully linked two quantum chips together to operate as a single device, a key step towards that goal
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2456542-ibm-entangled-two-quantum-chips-to-work-together-for-the-first-time/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Monster 4,400-qubit quantum processor is ’25,000 times faster’ than its predecessor
News
By Owen Hughes published November 18, 2024
D-Wave says its new Advantage2 processor, which is designed for complex applications in AI, optimization and data science, is faster and more accurate than its existing 5,000-qubit system.
https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/monster-4-400-qubit-quantum-processor-is-25-000-times-faster-than-its-predecessor
Tomi Engdahl says:
Experiment suggests quantum computers can coordinate actions of moving devices
https://phys.org/news/2024-11-quantum-actions-devices.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kvanttilaskennan aakkoset – osa A
https://www.jyu.fi/fi/avoin-yliopisto/opintojaksot/kvanttilaskennan-aakkoset-osa-a
Tomi Engdahl says:
Q.ANT Launches First Commercial Photonic Processor
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/11/20/q-ant-launches-first-commercial-photonic-processor/
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS, NVIDIA Offer Deep Dive Into Their Partnership to Develop Hybrid Quantum Computing
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/12/04/aws-nvidia-offer-deep-dive-into-their-partnership-to-develop-hybrid-quantum-computing/
Insider Brief
AWS and NVIDIA have integrated the CUDA-Q quantum development platform into Amazon Braket, streamlining hybrid quantum-classical computing workflows for researchers.
NVIDIA GPUs accelerate quantum circuit simulations, delivering up to 350x speed-ups over CPUs, enabling faster algorithm development and testing.
Researchers can seamlessly transition from simulations to quantum hardware, using Braket’s pay-as-you-go model to access systems from IonQ, Rigetti and IQM.
AWS and NVIDIA are teaming up to address one of the biggest challenges in quantum computing: integrating classical computing into the quantum stack, according to an AWS Quantum Technologies blog post. This partnership brings NVIDIA’s open-source CUDA-Q quantum development platform to Amazon Braket, enabling researchers to design, simulate and execute hybrid quantum-classical algorithms more efficiently.
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Russell / HPCwire:
Google says it made a major quantum error correction breakthrough, unveils its Willow quantum chip with 105 improved qubits, and shares benchmarks and a roadmap — Google today introduced its latest quantum chip — Willow (~100 qubits) — coinciding with two key achievements run on the new chip …
https://www.hpcwire.com/2024/12/09/google-debuts-new-quantum-chip-error-correction-breakthrough-and-roadmap-details/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2024/12/10/tuhansia-mikroaaltovahvistimia-kvanttitietokoneisiin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16936-suprajohtavan-prosessorin-rakennuspalikat-ovat-nyt-valmiina
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google jysäytti: Tämä keksintö tekee 5 minuutissa sen, mihin supertietokoneellakin menisi 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 vuotta
Google juhlii ottaneensa suuria harppauksia kvanttitietokoneiden kehittämisessä.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/digiuutiset/a/c288af42-679a-4be0-8473-31e4909ee1fe
Google on esitellyt uuden 100 kubitin Willow-kvanttitietokonesirun. Yhtiö väittää sen pystyvän ratkomaan viidessä minuutissa sellaisen ongelman, jonka laskemiseen menisi vielä hetki sitten maailman nopeimman supertietokoneen titteliä pitäneellä Frontierilla 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 vuotta.
Vertailussa käytettiin Googlen kehittämää random circuit sampling (rcs) -suorituskykytestiä eli satunnaisten sirujen otantaan perustuvaa benchmark-testiä.
BBC:n haastattelussa Willow’n kehitystiimiä Googlella johtava Hartmut Neven sanoi, että Willow’ta käytetään käytännön sovellutuksiin, mutta tarkemmin hän ei paljastanut sirun käyttökohteita.
Neven kehaisi, että Willow on toistaiseksi tehokkain julkaistu kvanttilaskentasiru. Samalla hän ennusti, että kaupallisiin käyttökohteisiin sopivaa sirua joudutaan odottamaan vuosikymmenen loppupuolelle saakka. Tähän mennessä eri tahojen lanseeraamia siruja käytetään nykyisin paremminkin tutkimuskäytössä, ja ala odottaa vielä riittävän vakaasti toimivien sirujen kehittämistä ennen kuin teknologian käyttö laajenee.
HPC Wire uutisoi Nevenin kertoneen medialle ja analyytikoille järjestetyssä tilanteessa koko alan huokaisseen helpotuksesta, kun kvanttikorjauksen todistettiin nyt toimivan käytännössä. Aiemmin on teoretisoitu, että kubittien määrän kasvaessa kvanttisirujen toiminnalle tyypillisen virheen määrä vähenisi. Näin todella kävi ja virheiden määrä laski eksponentiaalisesti.
Suomalaisen IQM Quantum Computersin viime vuonna ilmoittamana tavoitteena on rakentaa 50 kubitin kvanttitietokone vuoden 2024 loppuun mennessä. Tämän jälkeen tavoitteena on lähteä skaalaamaan kvanttitietokonetta kohti 300 kubitin tavoitetta.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google unveils ‘mind-boggling’ quantum computing chip
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c791ng0zvl3o
Google has unveiled a new chip which it claims takes five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world’s fastest super computers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete.
The chip is the latest development in a field known as quantum computing – which is attempting to use the principles of particle physics to create a new type of mind-bogglingly powerful computer.
Google says its new quantum chip, dubbed “Willow”, incorporates key “breakthroughs” and “paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer.”
However experts say Willow is, for now, a largely experimental device, meaning a quantum computer powerful enough to solve a wide range of real-world problems is still years – and billions of dollars – away.
Apples and oranges
Mr Neven told the BBC Willow’s performance meant it was the “best quantum processor built to date”.
But Professor Alan Woodward, a computing expert at Surrey University, says quantum computers will be better at a range of tasks than current “classical” computers, but they will not replace them.
He warns against overstating the importance of Willow’s achievement in a single test.
“One has to be careful not to compare apples and oranges” he told the BBC.
Google had chosen a problem to use as a benchmark of performance that was, “tailor-made for a quantum computer” and this didn’t demonstrate “a universal speeding up when compared to classical computers”.
Nonetheless, he said Willow represented significant progress, in particular in what’s known as error correction.
In very simple terms the more useful a quantum computer is, the more qubits it has.
However a major problem with the technology is that it is prone to errors – a tendency that has previously increased the more qubits a chip has.
But Google researchers say they have reversed this and managed to engineer and program the new chip so the error rate fell across the whole system as the number of qubits increased.
It was a major “breakthrough” that cracked a key challenge that the field had pursued “for almost 30 years”, Mr Neven believes.
He told the BBC it was comparable to “if you had an airplane with just one engine – that will work, but two engines are safer, four engines is yet safer”.
Errors are a significant obstacle in creating more powerful quantum computers and the development was “encouraging for everyone striving to build a practical quantum computer” Prof Woodward said.
But Google itself notes that to develop practically useful quantum computers the error rate will still need to go much lower than that displayed by Willow.
Willow was made in Google’s new, purpose-built manufacturing plant in California.
Countries around the world are investing in quantum computing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Debuts New Quantum Chip, Error Correction Breakthrough, and Roadmap Details
https://www.hpcwire.com/2024/12/09/google-debuts-new-quantum-chip-error-correction-breakthrough-and-roadmap-details/
Google today introduced its latest quantum chip — Willow (~100 qubits) — coinciding with two key achievements run on the new chip: breaking of the so-called Quantum Error Correction Threshold and posting a new benchmark for quantum performance against classical computing; Willow ran a benchmark task in five minutes that Google said would take ten septillion years (1024) on Frontier, which until a few weeks ago was the fastest supercomputer in the world.
It’s rare to catch Google in a talkative mood, but the technology giant held a media/analyst briefing before today’s announcement with handful of prominent members of the Google Quantum-AI team including Hartmut Neven, founder and lead; Michael Newman, research scientist; Julian Kelly, director of quantum hardware; and Carina Chou, director and COO. Currently, the Google Quantum-AI team has roughly 300 people with, plans for growth, and its own state of the art fabrication facility at UCSB.
This an important moment for Google’s quantum effort:
Breaking the QEC threshold (error rate decreases as number of qubits rises) is a long-sought goal in the community and basically proves it will be possible to build large error-corrected useful quantum computer.
The company also walked through its roadmap, discussing on technical goals (though not in great granularity) and business milestones. While the main focus is on achieving error-corrected QC fault-tolerance sometime around the end of the decade, it’s also looking at nearer term applications.
It also discussed its broad quantum business plans which include everything from fabbing its own chips and building its own system to offering quantum services via the cloud (naturally) but also plans for potential on-premise deployments.
Singling out the QEC work, Neven said, “Something that happened with the Willow achievement and showing that as we went from code distance three to five to seven, and then halving the error rate each time, in essence showing exponential reduction of error rate, I feel the whole community breathes the sigh of relief because it shows that quantum error correction indeed can work in practice.”
Willow Snapshot – Built for Scalability
Director of quantum hardware, Kelly said, “If you’re familiar with Sycamore [Google’s earlier QPU), you can think of Willow as basically all the good things about Sycamore, only now with better qubits and more of them. We believe this the best quantum computer that’s been built so far. The architecture looks like a square grid of superconducting transmon qubits with tunable qubits and couplers. There’s 105 qubits in this grid, and the average connectivity is about three and a half, whereas typically four way connectivity at the interior of the device.
“On the performance front, importantly, we’ve been able to increase our qubit coherence times, the t1 value, by a factor of five, from 20 up to 100 microseconds. And this is really important to understand, because the previous generation of chips, Sycamore, we have done all these amazing things with, but we were pushing up against this upper performance ceiling set by the coherence times. We’ve dramatically pushed that and given us a lot of breathing room, and we see that immediately from that, our error rates are decreased by about a factor of two from our Sycamore devices and this chips are uniquely suited for error correction, therefore scaling and useful applications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google unveils new quantum computing chip: Clock ticking for crypto encryption?
One expert says while Willow is a significant development, it’s still far short of being a threat to crypto encryption, at least for now.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/google-unveils-new-quantum-computing-chip-clock-ticking-crypto-encryption
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Willow Chip Signals the Urgency of Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration
Google’s Willow quantum chip marks a transformative moment in quantum computing development.
https://www.securityweek.com/googles-willow-chip-signals-the-urgency-of-post-quantum-cryptography-migration/
Forget the 10 septillion years needed for a classical computer to solve this problem, and focus instead on the falling number of necessary error correction qubits.
Google announced its latest quantum computing advance, the Willow chip, on December 9, 2024. The announcement focuses on two aspects: current power and future potential.
The power is demonstrated by large numbers: Willow can solve a problem in less than five minutes that would take a classical supercomputer 10 septillion years to solve. Now, even though the supercomputer and the length of time it would take are not factual but obviously simulations, and even though the problem may have been developed specifically to be solved by Willow, this is mighty impressive.
Karl Holmqvist, founder and CEO of Lastwall, explains the process. “What Google achieved with Willow involves something called random circuit sampling (RCS), which generates random quantum circuits specifically designed as a benchmark for quantum computers,” he told SecurityWeek.
“RCS is about creating complex pseudo-random quantum circuits, making it extremely difficult for classical computers to process. In that sense, it’s a contrived problem because it’s built specifically to test quantum systems. However, it is also an accepted benchmark for evaluating whether a system can harness quantum effects.”
It is and is meant to be impressive. Note that in 2019 Google bragged about achieving ‘quantum supremacy’ with a quantum computer that could solve a different problem that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years to solve in around 200 seconds. Willow shows a remarkable improvement in just five years.
But it is perhaps not as impressive as we are meant to assume. There is no apparent dramatic decrease in the time to a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) – that point at which a quantum computer will be able to decrypt current PKE encryption. To put it bluntly, it is specifically CRQC rather than quantum computing in general that is of current concern to cybersecurity professionals.
It is the other part of the Willow announcement that is of greater importance — Google appears to have made a breakthrough in quantum error correction. Qubits are so inherently fragile (prone to errors from environmental noise, decoherence, and operational imperfections) that each ‘functioning’ qubit requires many more qubits to correct the errors. Without that error correction, a quantum computer effectively decays into a classical computer.
Willow has 105 qubits. IBM’s Osprey says it has 433 qubits. “What’s the use of a high qubit count if error rates are so high the results cannot be trusted?” asks Skip Sanzeri, co-founder and COO, QuSecure. “I think it’s safe to say that IBM and others have not yet achieved these error correction milestones or most likely we would have heard about them. We can bet that all eyes will be on Google as other companies and nation-states will attempt to mimic Willow’s error correction.”
Google has demonstrated with Willow that it can increase the number of qubits while simultaneously reducing the reliance on error correcting qubits.
“This is a major watershed moment for quantum computation design, marked by the demonstration of below-threshold scaling capabilities,”
It is impossible to say that Willow and Google’s below threshold error correction brings the day of CRQC any closer, but it does have that potential. The real lesson for security folk is that we no longer dare delay our cryptographic migration to NIST’s post quantum and agile encryption algorithms. To do so goes beyond folly.
https://www.securityweek.com/post-quantum-cryptography-standards-officially-announced-by-nist-a-history-and-explanation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Says It Appears to Have Accessed Parallel Universes
Can they access one where Steve Irwin is still alive?
https://futurism.com/google-quantum-computer-parallel-universes
Google has made an eyebrow-raising claim, saying that its new quantum chip may be tapping into parallel universes to achieve its results.
The search giant recently unveiled a new quantum computer chip, dubbed Willow, which — on a specific benchmark, at least — the company says can outperform any supercomputer in the world.
“Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing,” Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven wrote in a blog post announcing the chip. “It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10²⁵ or 10 septillion years.”
“This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe,” he argued. “It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch.”
https://blog.google/technology/research/google-willow-quantum-chip/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum computing’s next step: New algorithm boosts multitasking
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-12-quantum-algorithm-boosts-multitasking.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not Quite Quantum, But a Berry Good Simulator
The RasQberry Two is a 3D-printed IBM Quantum System Two model powered by a Raspberry Pi running Qiskit to simulate quantum computing.
https://www.hackster.io/news/not-quite-quantum-but-a-berry-good-simulator-94458ca5a59e
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/switzerland-inaugurates-first-quantum-computer-for-commercial-use/88488452