E-Mail
IMAGE: Professor David Reilly from the School of Physics at the University of Sydney holds a joint position with Microsoft Corporation. view more
Credit: University of Sydney
Scientists and engineers at the University of Sydney and Microsoft Corporation have opened the next chapter in quantum technology with the invention of a single chip that can generate control signals for thousands of qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers. To realise the potential of quantum computing, machines will need to operate thousands if not millions of qubits, said Professor David Reilly, a designer of the chip who holds a joint position with Microsoft and the University of Sydney.
Australian invention will see transformational scaling up of quantum computers, experts say
Posted
MonMonday 1
updated
MonMonday 1
FebFebruary 2021 at 10:10pm
Quantum physicist David Reilly from the University of Sydney believes the world is hungry for quantum computing power.
(
Share
Print text only
Cancel
Australian researchers have unveiled an invention being hailed as the first decent pick and shovel in the gold rush to develop large quantum computers.
Key points:
A new kind of chip that works in ultra-low temperatures removes a major barrier to scaling up quantum computers
Experts say it could lead to much faster quantum computers within the next few years
Aussieâs âabsolute zeroâ quantum computing breakthrough
Save
Share
A team of scientists at the University of Sydney says it has overcome one of the biggest problems standing in the way of anyone building a quantum computer that can actually do something useful: how do you control a quantum computer operating at temperatures close to absolute zero, without running so many wires to it that you warm it up and render it useless?
Nature, the team announced it has invented a pair of computer chips nicknamed âGooseberryâ, which could operate inside the icy cold refrigerators required by most quantum computer designs, and still provide an interface to the outside world without significantly raising the temperature inside the fridge.
None of that nuclear-magnetic-resonance garbage, ha Share
Copy
Microsoft says it has made progress in its effort to develop CMOS-based chips for quantum computing.
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology – an integrated circuit manufacturing process – is used to make a variety of computer components. And many of the scientists developing quantum computers would prefer to use this familiar approach to build machines that realize quantum bits, or qubits, instead of relying on more exotic mechanisms that have been explored like liquid-state nuclear-magnetic-resonance or ion traps.
Qubits are to quantum computers what binary bits are to classical computers, the state measured for computation. Qubits represent the state of a quantum system, which can be determined by measuring subatomic particles like the spin of electrons or the polarization of photons.