Alice & Bob, with whom Amazon partnered to unveil its own quantum computing chip, has found an innovative way to reduce quantum errors.
Alice & Bob , a Paris and Boston-based quantum computing company, announced a 160x improvement in quantum correction achieved by “squeezing” qubits. This is a major boost to the company’s long-term aim of building fault-tolerant computers using its proprietary ‘cat qubit’ technology, the technology global tech giant Amazon banked on to build its own quantum computing chip.
Quantum computers are touted as the next frontier of computing, capable of completing computations that would take even the fastest supercomputers of today decades to complete. This is achieved by leveraging quantum states of atoms/nuclei capable of existing in two states simultaneously, unlike binary bits that can either be ‘on’ or ‘off.’ As research institutes and private companies work towards building this next generation of superior computers that could help us solve problems such as antimicrobial resistance and climate change with their superior computing capabilities, a major hurdle still needs to be crossed: error correction. Since information stored in quantum bits or qubits is sensitive to environmental noise and imperfections of hardware and control systems, results obtained from quantum computation must first be corrected. Alice & Bob’s proprietary approach, which it calls ‘cat’ qubits, is designed to minimize error correction and has now achieved a 160x improvement by ‘squeezing’ them. What are cat qubits?Cat qubits are superconducting qubits inspired by the famous Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment, where the cat can exist in two states simultaneously- alive and dead. While a typical superconducting qubit has one amplitude and one phase, a cat qubit encodes the same amplitude with two but opposite phases. For instance, if the amplitude of a cat qubit is ɑ, it exists in states +ɑ and -ɑ. Artist’s representation of a quantum computing chip using Alice & Bob’s cat qubits. Image credit: Alice & Bob.This change in the quantum configuration of cat qubits results in a drastic reduction of bit flip error rates and a linear increase in phase flip error rates. Both bit-flip and phase-flip error rates are seen in superconducting qubits of other types. Still, an unequal trade-off in the case of cat qubits presents an additional advantage – a reduction of error rates. To achieve fault-tolerant computing, researchers are trying to assemble many physical qubits to build a logical qubit to achieve low error rates. With the suppressing nature of Alice & Bob’s cat qubits, a logical gate can be made with fewer physical qubits. In a recent preprint paper, the company showcased how it can optimize error suppression by squeezing its cat qubits. Squeezing cat qubitsAccording to the press release sent to Interesting Engineering, a cat qubit can be made larger by injecting more photons into it. While increasing the size of the cat qubit also makes it more robust against bit-flip errors. However, if the photon escapes the cat qubit, it can result in a phase-flip error. Researchers at Alice & Bob have found a way to solve this problem by squeezing the cat qubit. By compressing the quantum states, the researchers minimized overlap and increased separation between states. By squeezing the cat qubits, the researchers also successfully minimized phase-flip errors.“The goal with squeezing is to make every photon count,” said Anil Murani, senior researcherand Fellow Expert at Alice & Bob, in the press release. “Our latest innovation makes our cat qubits more well-rounded and squeezes even greater protection out of them, which will ease the requirements on error correction.” In a demonstration, Alice & Bob found that using 4.9 photons in a cat qubit without squeezing had a bit-flip lifetime of 138 milliseconds. With squeezing, using just 4.1 photons, this bit-flip lifetime increased to 22 seconds, resulting in 160x fewer bit-flip errors with no phase-flip increases. “By enhancing qubit performance without modifying circuit design, this simple yet effectivetechnique positions our platform to deliver high-fidelity logical qubits at an even smaller fraction of the cost of alternative approaches,” added Raphael Lescanne, CTO and co-founder of Alice & Bob, in the press release. In addition to seeing a 50 percent decrease in gate infidelity, the researchers are also confident that their approach will help reduce quantum error correction costs.
Bob Bit Flip Errors Cat Qubits Error Correction Inventions And Machines Phase Flip Errors Quantum Computing Quantum Error Correction Qubits Supercomputers
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