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Also there China he sold his first quantum computerbecoming the third nation to do so after United States And Canada. In reality the sale, made by the startup Origin Quantumwould have happened about a year ago, but it was only made public today, as the South China Morning Post: “The first commercial quantum computer – explains the newspaper, quoting the government agency Science and Technology DailyChinese Ministry of Science megaphone – is called wuyuanis 24 qubits and is based on superconducting technology. It was delivered to an anonymous customer over a year ago, and is the first official confirmation that this revolutionary technology, which uses elementary particles called qubits instead of bit of traditional computers, has been used for real-world applications in China. No further details on the use of the quantum computer were provided.”. Up until now, quantum computers in China had only been used for academic and research purposes; in any case, speculate The Quantum Insider, “since the sale took place over a year ago, it is almost certain that Origin Quantum has more advanced versions of Wuyuan available today ready for commercial use”. And in fact the company, founded in 2017 by a group of scientists from Chinese Academy of Sciences coordinated by Guo Guopinghas announced that it will be available soon Wukonga new quantum computer likely even more powerful than Wuyuan. “Quantum computers are gods accelerators – explained Guoping in an interview with The paper – think, for example, of a problem that ten traditional supercomputers would take a month to solve. By adding a quantum computer, the computational time could be reduced to three days.”.
Let’s sort out the ideas
Indeed, the concept most commonly associated with quantum computers is that they are “faster” compared to traditional ones. A statement that, in reality, only tells a part of history, and not even the most important. To understand more, we asked for enlightenment Simone Severiniprofessor of information physics at the University College Londondirector of the unit of quantum computing Of Amazon Web Services (Aws) and author of In the land of qubitsrecently published by Flaco editionswhich confirmed to us that reducing the discussion to speed alone is an understatement: “The paradigm with which quantum computers work is totally different from the one with which classical computers work: for this reason, it is too simplistic to make comparisons in terms of speed and efficiency. The most sensible analogy is not with a classic calculator, but rather with a telescope: the quantum computer should be considered as a tool that allows to look farther”.
A goal yet to be crossed
In short, the idea is that quantum computers, just like microscopes or telescopes, precisely, allow (or rather they will allow) to get where traditional computers can’t: it’s the concept of the so-called quantum supremacyfirst defined by John Preskillphysicist of Caltechin a 2012 article: “Quantum information science studies the frontier of very complex quantum states, the so-called ‘frontier of’entanglement‘. This study is motivated by the claim (as yet unproven, but widely believed) that classical systems cannot efficiently simulate highly entangled quantum systems [highly entangled]: We hope that the day will soon come when well-controlled quantum systems will be able to perform tasks that are currently not possible in the classical world. One way to achieve this quantum supremacy […] could be running an algorithm that simulates exotic quantum states of highly correlated matter”. The question can be put in a less technical way by saying that obtaining quantum supremacy means being able to solve, with a quantum computer, a calculation that a traditional computer would not be able to solve, at least in a reasonable time. In 2019, for example, SycamoreGoogle’s quantum computer, has managed to generate a “random” quantum physical state in a few seconds; Summit, one of the most powerful (traditional) supercomputers in the world, would take about 10,000 years to solve the same problem. Did we make it, then? Not exactly. Things are even more complex than it seems: “The results of the experiments carried out to prove that we have achieved quantum supremacy – explains Severini again – are to be taken with a grain of salt. To demonstrate quantum supremacy, an abstract mathematical problem is presented to a quantum computer that a classical computer cannot solve; However, just as quantum technology advances over time, so does classical technology and, of course, mathematics. Therefore, it is theoretically possible that over time we will find new ways of solving these problems, these mathematical artifacts, which are also feasible for classical computers. In short, that of quantum supremacy is a field in which everything is still to be demonstrated, or almost everything”.
But what do we really want?
By the way, the quantum supremacy it’s not even the ultimate goal. The further step, in fact, is the achievement of the so-called quantum advantage, i.e. the actual design of algorithms for the quantum computers of the future to perform. It is as if in this moment we were about to demonstrate that it is possible to build a very fast car, but we still lack roads, petrol stations, departures and destinations: “It is still far too early to imagine all the applications – he explained to us Thomas Calarcoone of the founders of Quantum Flagship of European Union – They could be really huge, and mind-blowing. The next steps are first of all to further improve the hardware, arriving at precisely controlling systems with 100 or more qubits, and then working on the development of algorithms that allow us to reach the quantum advantage”.
Thus we arrive at another fundamental node: the race to build quantum computers with as many as possible qubits. An issue that really shouldn’t worry us too much at the moment: “It is often said that a certain quantum computer broke the record for the number of qubits – says Severini again – but we must bear in mind that in the phase in which we find ourselves, the prehistory of quantum computing, quality matters far more than quantity. The problem is that i qubits they are very prone to errors: for every operation that takes place, there is a certain probability that a mistake will be made. We can think of computation as a musical score: the lines of the staff are i qubits, and the notes are the operations performed. Currently, several notes are most likely to be out of tune: if the wrong tunes pile up, the final melody will be completely wrong. And it is still very difficult to keep quantum computing free from false notes, errors: this is because quantum processors are very delicate and very sensitive, and it is therefore necessary to keep them isolated as much as possible from the outside world, for example by keeping them at very low temperatures or using superconductors. In any case, I am convinced that over time – and at this moment we do not know How much time – quantum computers will be able to efficiently manipulate millions of qubits [oggi siamo nell’ordine delle centinaia, nda]”.
The future
What are we going to do about it when that happens? The possibilities are many, and some are probably not even imaginable right now prehistoric: the quantum computer can first of all be used as search toolfor example for better understand the behavior of complex quantum systemsthe; but it will probably make a very significant contribution also in the field of design of new drugsin material design, in the design of more efficient batteries. “In my opinion – concludes Severini – we will move towards an ever more extreme sectoralization of information technology. Quantum computers will be able to be used for increasingly specific and particular tasks, as indeed is already happening with silicon – I am thinking, for example, of the use of GPUs, the processors of graphics cards. Will continue the process ‘ocean migration’ to the cloud, e it will be possible to access advanced quantum processors also from the home computer, or from the smartphone, which at that point will become simple receivers of information while very complex calculations will be carried out elsewhere. For example, with AWS we have already launched a cloud service, Amazon Braket, which today allows everyone to use quantum computers built today. And this is one way to democratize an important technology and thus accelerate its development. But we are still at the beginning”.
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