quantum computing

44 Articles

Inca Knots Inspire Quantum Computer

July 28, 2022 by 19 Comments

We think of data storage as a modern problem, but even ancient civilizations kept records. While much of the world used stone tablets or other media that didn’t survive the centuries, the Incas used something called quipu which encoded numeric data in strings using knots. Now the ancient system of recording numbers has inspired a new way to encode qubits in a quantum computer.

With quipu, knots in a string represent a number. By analogy, a conventional qubit would be as if you used a string to form a 0 or 1 shape on a tabletop. A breeze or other “noise” would easily disturb your equation. But knots stay tied even if you pick the strings up and move them around. The new qubits are the same, encoding data in the topology of the material.

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Google Quantum, Virtually

July 28, 2022 by 18 Comments

Want to try a big quantum computer but don’t have the cash? Google wants to up your simulation game with their “Quantum Virtual Machine” that you can use for free.

On the face of it, it sounds like marketing-speak for just another quantum simulator. But if you read the post, it sounds like it attempts to model effects from a real Sycamore processor including qubit decay and dephasing along with gate and readout errors. This forms what Google calls “processor-like” output, meaning it is as imperfect as a real quantum computer.

If you need more qubits than Google is willing to support, there are ways to add more computing using external compute nodes. Even if you have access to a real machine of sufficient size, this is handy because you don’t have to wait in a queue for time on a machine. You can work out a lot of issues before going to the real computer.

This couldn’t help but remind us of the old days when you had to bring your cards to the central computer location and wait your turn only to find out you’d made a stupid spelling mistake that cost you an hour of wait time. In those days, we’d “desk check” a program carefully before submitting it. This system would allow a similar process where you test your basic logic flow on a virtual machine before suffering the wait time for a real computer to run it.

Of course, if you really need a quantum computer, the simulation is probably too slow to be practical. But at least this might help you work out the kinks on smaller problems before tackling the whole enchilada. What will you do with a quantum computer? Tell us in the comments.

Google, of course, likes its own language, Cirq. If you want a leg up on general concepts with a friendly simulator, try our series.

Quantum Circuit Uses Just A Few Atoms

June 25, 2022 by 5 Comments

Researchers at the University of New South Wales and a startup company, Silicon Quantum Computing, published results of their quantum dot experiments. The circuits use up to 10 carbon-based quantum dots on a silicon substrate. Metal gates control the flow of electrons.  The paper appears in Nature and you can download the full paper from there.

What’s new about this is that the dots are precisely arranged to simulate an organic compound, polyacetylene. This allowed researchers to model the actual molecule. Simulating molecules is important in the study of exotic matter phases, such as superconductivity. The interaction of particles inside, for example, a crystalline structure is difficult to simulate using conventional methods. By building a model using quantum techniques on the same scale and with the same topology as the molecule in question, simulation is simplified.

The SSH (Su-Schreffer-Heeger) model describes a single electron moving along a one-dimensional lattice with staggered tunnel couplings. At least, that’s what the paper says and we have to believe it. Creating such a model for simple systems has been feasible, but for a “many body” problem, conventional computing just isn’t up to the task. Currently, the 10 dot model is right at the limit of what a conventional computer can simulate reasonably. The team plans to build a 20 dot circuit that would allow for unique simulations not feasible with classic computing tech.

The dots are made with a scanning tunneling microscope and there is a Goldilocks effect regarding the size of the dots. If they are too small, the energy levels are overwhelmed by phosphorous donors. Too large, and capacitive coupling between dots makes the system unstable.

We’ll admit, the science in the paper is pretty dense. But the Methods section outlines what it takes to create something like this. You’ll need silicon, high-temperature ovens, and the ability to handle exotic gasses and perform lithography. Pretty much an IC fab in your basement. However, we did wonder if anyone homebrewing chips had ever tried STM lithography like this as an alternative to optical lithography. Seems like it might be possible.

We can’t help with some of the more exotic gear, but if you want to build an STM, it has been done. While you can make quantum dots in your kitchen, we don’t think they are going to work the same.

Quantum Computing: The First Taste Is Free

June 5, 2022 by 3 Comments

There are a few ways to access real quantum computers — often for free — over the Internet. However, most of these are previous-generation machines that have limited capabilities. Great for learning, perhaps, but not something you could do anything practical with.  Xanadu, however, has announced what they claim to be a computer capable of reaching quantum advantage that is free for anyone to use, within limits. Borealis — the computer in question — uses photonic states and has the capability of working with over 216 squeezed-state qubits.

The company is selling time on the computer, but the free tier includes 5 million free shots on Borealis and 10 million shots on an earlier series of quantum computers. You can also buy pay-as-you go service for about $100 per million shots on Borealis.

While a few million shots may sound like a lot, we noticed that the quickstart demo consumes 10,000 shots and that’s presumably something simple. That’s still about 500 runs of that on Borealis — not bad for free on a state-of-the-art quantum computer. You will be wanting to debug with a simulator, though.

We presume the developers are Beatles fans given that you use software called Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields to access the machines. Your job is controlled by Python and there is a cloud simulator to save your shots.

We won’t pretend to understand all there is about squeezed light qubits and the Borealis architecture. But you can get some general practice in our series on quantum computing. Or there are a few lectures around including one that aims at different levels of experience.

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Hello (Many Quantum) World(s)

February 17, 2022 by 9 Comments

Historically, the first program you write for a new computer language is “Hello World,” or, if you are in Texas, “Howdy World.” But with quantum computing on the horizon, you need something better. Like “Hello Many Worlds.” [IonQ] proposes what that looks like and then writes it in seven different quantum languages in a post you should check out.

Here’s the description of the simple program:

The basic quantum program we’ll write is simple. It creates a fully-entangled state between two qubits, and then measures this state. This state is sometimes called a Bell State, or Bell Pair, after physicist John Stewart Bell.

The measurement results for this program should give us 0 for both qubits or 1 for both qubits, in equal amounts. When running these, we’ll be able to tell that we’re running on real hardware because that’s not always what we get! These errors are what currently limit quantum computers, but the first steps to overcome this with quantum error correction have already begun.

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IBM Eagle Has A Lot Of Qubits

February 8, 2022 by 7 Comments

How many qubits do you need in a quantum computer? Plenty, if you want to anything useful. However, today, we have to settle for a lot fewer than we would like. But IBM’s new Eagle has the most of its type of quantum computer: 127-qubits. Naturally, they plan to do even more work, and you can see a preview of “System Two” in the video below.

The 127 qubit number is both impressively large and depressingly small. Each qubit increases the amount of work a conventional computer has to do to simulate the machine by a factor of two. The hope is to one day produce quantum computers that would be impractical to simulate using conventional computers. That’s known as quantum supremacy and while several teams have claimed it, actually achieving it is a subject of debate.

Like any computer, more bits — or qubits — are better than fewer bits, generally speaking. However, it is especially important for modern quantum systems since most practical schemes require redundancy and error correction to be reliable in modern implementations of quantum computer hardware. What’s in the future? IBM claims they will build the Condor processor with over 1,000 qubits using the same 3D packaging technology seen in Eagle. Condor is slated for 2023 and there will be an intermediate chip due in 2022 with 433 qubits.

Scaling anything to a large number usually requires more than just duplicating smaller things. In the case of Eagle and at least one of its predecessors, part of the scaling was to use readout units that can read different qubits. Older processors with just a few qubits would have dedicated readout hardware for each qubit, but that’s untenable once you get hundreds or thousands of qubits.

Qubits aren’t the only measure of a computer’s power, just like a conventional computer with more bits might be less capable than one with fewer bits. You also have to consider the quality of the qubits and how they are connected.

Who’s going to win the race to quantum supremacy? Or has it already been won? We have a feeling if it hasn’t already been done, it won’t be very far in the future. If you think about the state of computers in, say, 1960 and compare it to today, about 60 years later, you have to wonder if that amount of progress will occur in this area, too.

Most of the announcements you hear about quantum computing come from Google, IBM, or Microsoft. But there’s also Honeywell and a few other players. If you want to get ready for the quantum onslaught, maybe start with this tutorial that will run on a simulator, mostly.

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Twist Promises Easier Quantum Programming

February 5, 2022 by 17 Comments

We keep trying to learn more about quantum computers. But the truth is, the way we program quantum computers — or their simulators — today will probably not have much in common with how we program them in the future. Think about it. Programming your PC is nothing like programming the ENIAC. So we expect we’ll see more and more abstractions over the “bare metal” quantum computer. The latest of these is Twist, from MIT.

According to the paper (and the video, below), Twist expresses entangled data and processes in a way that traditional programmers can understand. The key concept is known as “purity” of expressions which helps the compiler determine if data is actually entangled with another piece of data or if any potential entanglement is extraneous. A pure expression only depends on qubits it owns, while a mixed expression may use qubits owned by other expressions.

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