Tristan is a U.S-based science and technology journalist. He covers artificial intelligence (AI), theoretical physics, and cutting-edge technology stories. His work has been published in numerous outlets including Mother Jones, The Stack, The Next Web, and Undark Magazine.
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Record-breaking feat means information lasts 15 times longer in new kind of quantum processor than those used by Google and IBMSnakes' mind-bending 'heat vision' inspires scientists to build a 4K imaging system that could one day fit into your smartphoneNew 'DNA cassette tape' can store up to 1.5 million times more data than a smartphone — and the data can last 20,000 years if frozenElectronicsRepresentatives from the Sydney-based startup say their silicon-based, atomic quantum computing chips give them an advantage over other kinds of. This is because the chips are based on a new architecture, called"14/15," that places phosphorus atoms in silicon . They outlined their findings in a new study published Dec. 17 in the journal Nature. SQC achieved fidelity rates between 99.5% to 99.99% in a quantum computer with nine nuclear qubits and two atomic qubits, resulting in the world’s first demonstration of atomic, silicon-based quantum computing across separate clusters.Breakthrough 3D wiring architecture enables 10,000-qubit quantum processors Fidelity rates measure how well error-correction and mitigation techniques are working. Company representatives say they have achieved a state-of-the-art error rate on their bespoke architecture. This might not sound as exciting as quantum computers with thousands of qubits, but the 14/15 architecture is massively scalable, the scientists said in the study. They added that demonstrating peak fidelity across multiple clusters serves as a proof-of-concept for what, theoretically, could lead to fault-tolerant QPUs with millions of functional qubits.Quantum computing is performed using the same principle as binary computing — energy is used to perform computations. But instead of using electricity to flip switches, as is the case in traditional binary computers, quantum computing involves the creation and manipulation of qubits — the quantum equivalent of a classical computer’s bits. Qubits come in numerous forms. Google and IBM scientists are building systems with superconducting qubits that use gated circuits, while some labs, such as PsiQuantum, have developed photonic qubits — qubits that are particles of light. Others, including IonQ, are working with trapped ions — capturing single atoms and holding them in a device referred to as laser tweezers.Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors The general idea is to use quantum mechanics to manipulate something very small in such a way as to conduct useful computations from its potential states. SQC representatives say their process for doing this is unique, in that QPUs are developed using the 14/15 architecture., CEO of SQC, told Live Science in an interview."It is 0.13 nanometers, and it's essentially the kind of bond length that you have in the vertical direction. It's two orders of magnitude below typically what TSMC does as its standard. It's quite a dramatic increase in the precision."'This is easily the most powerful quantum computer on Earth': Scientists unveil Helios, a record-breaking quantum system In order for scientists to achieve scaling in quantum computing, each platform has various obstacles to overcome or mitigate. One universal obstacle for all quantum computing platforms is error correction . Quantum computations happen in extremely brittle environments, with qubits sensitive to electromagnetic waves, temperature fluctuations and other stimuli. This causes the superposition of many qubits to"collapse," and they become unmeasurable — with quantum information lost during calculations. To compensate, most quantum computing platforms dedicate a number of qubits to error mitigation. They function in a similar way to check or parity bits in a classical network. But as qubit counts increase, so too does the number of qubits required for QEC. "We have these long coherence times of the nuclear spins and we have very little what we call"bit flip errors." So, our error correction codes themselves are much more efficient. We're not having to correct for a bit flip and phase for errors,” Simmons said. In other silicon-based quantum systems, bit flip errors are more prominent because qubits tend to be less stable when manipulated with coarser accuracy. Because SQC’s chips are engineered with high precision, they’re able to mitigate certain occurrences of errors experienced in other platforms. "We really only have to correct for those phase errors," added Williams."So, the error correction codes are much smaller, therefore the whole overhead that you do for error correctionThe standard for testing fidelity in a quantum computing system is a routine called Grover’s algorithm. It was designed by computer scientistToday, it’s used as a diagnostic tool to determine how efficiently quantum systems are operating. Essentially, if a lab can reach quantum computing fidelity rates in the range of 99.0% and above, it’s considered to have achieved error-corrected, fault-tolerant quantum computing.In this regard, SQC has surpassed firms such as IBM and Google; although they have shown competitive results with dozens or even hundreds of qubits versus SQC’s four qubits. IBM, Google and other prominent projects are still testing and iterating their respective roadmaps. As they scale up the qubit count, however, they’re forced to adapt their error mitigation techniques. QEC has proven to be among the most difficult to overcome bottlenecks. But SQC scientists say their platform is so"error deficient" that it was able to break the record on Grover’s without running any error correction on top of the qubits.."If you look at the Grover's result that we produced at the beginning of the year, we've got the highest fidelity Grover album at 98.87% of the theoretical maximum and, on that, we're not doing any error correction at all," Simmons said. Williams says the qubit"clusters" featured in the new 11-qubit system can be scaled to represent millions of qubits — although infrastructure bottlenecks may yet slow down progress.. "Obviously as we scale towards larger systems, we are going to be doing error correction," said Simmons."Every company has to do that. But the number of qubits we will need will be much smaller. Therefore, the physical system will be smaller. The power requirements will be smaller."His work has been published in numerous outlets including Mother Jones, The Stack, The Next Web, and Undark Magazine. Prior to journalism, Tristan served in the US Navy for 10 years as a programmer and engineer. When he isn’t writing, he enjoys gaming with his wife and studying military history.Google's breakthrough 'Quantum Echoes' algorithm pushes us closer to useful quantum computing — running 13,000 times faster than on a supercomputer Record-breaking feat means information lasts 15 times longer in new kind of quantum processor than those used by Google and IBM New 'DNA cassette tape' can store up to 1.5 million times more data than a smartphone — and the data can last 20,000 years if frozen
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