China introduces its first commercial quantum computer, by Origin Quantum Computing

China also has its first commercial quantum computer. Produced by Origin Quantum Computingit is a device equipped with 24 qubits is called wuyuan. The eastern country thus joins Canada, the United States and Europe in having its own commercial quantum offer, although the details are still scarce.

From China with the quantum computer

What happens behind the Great Wall (in a figurative sense, in this case, rather than physical) is always rather complicated to understand, at least as regards projects with a high technological content. Origin Quantum Computing’s announcement of the launch of its first commercial quantum computer is, therefore, difficult to interpret in more concrete terms than mere propagandaat least by the way it’s presented.

In fact, there is no certain information on the device, beyond the fact that it is equipped with 24 qubits: it is not even known what type of physical phenomenon is used to obtain the qubits (Josephson junctions? Ions? Others? It is not known !). It is only reported that the company has produced a quantum annealing device (which can solve optimization problems, but not perform any calculations) using lasers, but it appears to be a different device.

The Global Times reports how the first unit was delivered as early as 2021, according to the words of Zhang Hui, director of the Anhui Quantum Computer Engineering Research Center. In 2022 Origin Quantum Computing would create a solution to integrate supercomputers based on traditional processors and quantum computers.

The company intends to introduce a new model with higher computing power, called Wukong, “very early”. It is not known when this will happen, nor what the specifications of the new device will be.

With the approach of the first quantum computers capable of breaking current public key encryption methods, the world seems to be heading towards a new “race for space”. In December some Chinese researchers had claimed to have found a method to break RSA with just 372 qubits, causing considerable controversy and going against what is known about it (Fujitsu recently published a study about it). New post-quantum ciphers are already available, but their large-scale implementation will certainly take some time.