Researchers have created a prototype quantum computer with a record number of qubits—the analog of bits in an ordinary computer—capable of performing logical operations. The feat promises to be an important step towards building a practical quantum computer.
The work, led by scientists at Harvard University, included researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and QuEra Computing Inc. in Boston, in collaboration with theorists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), a research partnership between NIST and the University of Maryland,
For certain problems, quantum computing may offer an advantage over ordinary computing because qubits are not restricted to the specific “1”’sand “0”s” of ordinary bits, but can be in a superposition of the two, potentially storing and encoding much more information. However, qubits are notoriously fragile, their quantum states easily disturbed by interactions with their environment and prone to errors.
Individual physical qubits, like rubidium atoms, are notoriously fragile and easily disturbed by interactions with their environment. To minimize errors, researchers entangle the atoms together to form a single "logical qubit,” which can be combined with other logical qubits into a fault-tolerant quantum circuit.
Credit: S. Kelley/NIST
To minimize errors, the researchers used the principle of quantum entanglement, in which many physical qubits are linked together to form a “logical qubit” in which information is distributed among numerous qubits rather than stored in a single, potentially faulty one. In the team’s study, two closely spaced energy levels in single atoms of rubidium served as the physical qubits, ..
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