Quantum computing and quantum sensing have the potential to be vastly more powerful than their classical counterparts. Not only could a fully realized quantum computer take just seconds to solve equations that would take a classical computer thousands of years, but it could have incalculable impacts on areas ranging from biomedical imaging to autonomous driving.
However, the technology isn’t quite there yet.
In fact, despite widespread theories about the far-reaching impact of quantum technologies, very few researchers have been able to demonstrate, using the technology available now, that quantum methods have an advantage over their classical counterparts.
In a paper published on June 1 in the journal Physical Review X, University of Arizona researchers experimentally show that quantum has an advantage over classical computing systems.
“Demonstrating a quantum advantage is a long-sought-after goal in the community, and very few experiments have been able to show it,” said paper co-author Zheshen Zhang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, principal investigator of the UArizona Quantum Information and Materials Group and one of the paper’s authors. “We are seeking to demonstrate how we can leverage the quantum technology that already exists to benefit real-world applications.”
Quantum computing and other quantum processes rely on tiny, powerful units of information called qubits. The classical computers we use today work with units of information called bits, which exist as either 0s or 1s, but qubits are capable of existing in both states at the same time. This duality makes them both powerful and fragile. The delicate qubits are prone to collapse without warning, making a process called error correction—which addresses such problems as they happen—very important.
The quantum field is now in an era that John Preskill, a renowned physicist from the California Institute of Technology, termed “noisy intermediate scale quantum,” or NISQ. In the NISQ era, quantum computers can perform tasks that only require about 50 to a few hundred qubits, though with a significant amount of noise, or interference. Any more than that and the noisiness overpowers the usefulness, causing everything to collapse. It is widely believed that 10,000 to several million qubits would be needed to carry out practically useful quantum applications.
Imagine inventing a system that guarantees every meal you cook will turn out perfectly, and then giving that system to a group of children who don’t have the right ingredients. It will be great in a few years, once the kids become adults and can buy what they need. But until then, the usefulness of the system is limited. Similarly, until researchers advance the field of error correction, which can reduce noise levels, quantum computations are limited to a small scale. https://news.arizona.edu/story/uarizona-engineers-demonstrate-quantum-advantage
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