Major Computing Breakthrough: Copenhagen Researchers Can Now Achieve "Quantum Advantage"
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Major Computing Breakthrough: Copenhagen Researchers Can Now Achieve Quantum Advantage":
We now possess the tool that makes it possible to build a quantum simulator that can outperform a classical computer. This is a major breakthrough and the first step into uncharted territory in the world of quantum physics," asserts Professor Peter Lodahl, Director of the Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q).
[...] While the researchers have yet to conduct an actual quantum advantage' experiment, their article in Science Advances proves that their chip produces a quantum mechanical resource that can be used to reach quantum advantage' with already demonstrated technology.
To achieve this state demands that one can control about 50 quantum bits, qubits" - quantum physics' equivalent of the binary bits of zeros and ones used in our classical computers - in a comprehensive experimental set-up that is well beyond the university's own financial means.
[...] Various schools exist in the world of qubit development for quantum computers, depending upon which quantum building blocks" one starts with: atoms, electrons, or photons. Each platform has pros and cons, and it remains difficult to predict, which technology will triumph.
The primary advantage of light-based quantum computers is that technology is already available for scaling up to many qubits because of the availability of advanced photonic chips, which have been developed for the telecom industry. A major challenge to generating photon qubits has been to do so with sufficiently high quality. This is precisely where the Copenhagen researchers achieved their breakthrough.
The main block in performing an actual experiment is funding; they need about 10 million Euro.
Journal Reference:
Ravitej Uppu, Freja T. Pedersen, Ying Wang, et al. Scalable integrated single-photon source [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc8268)
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