Quantum Computers getting closer

[.Scott]

TL;DR Summary

An Australian company, Quantum Brilliance, is developing a room temperature Quantum Data Processor with very millisecond stability.

This New Atlas article on Quantum Brilliance describes the development status of a new quantum data processor that can operate at room temperature. They are predicting a useful commercial device in about 5 years.

The device is based on nuclear spin in a diamond substrate.

The device is very portable - and they expect to be able to put it on a card that would be installed in your PC and perhaps later to a chip that could be included in a mobile device.

You can also sign up for a white paper at the Quantum Brilliance website.

 

[pbuk]

Doesn't quite pass the smell test for me, anyone more familiar with the field?

 

[Jarvis323]

I don't have the knowledge to fully understand the physics. But there seems to be a lot of recent similar sounding breakthroughs lately. I wouldn't be surprised if a 50 qbit quantum processor is available in a compact size in 4 years. I would be a little surprised if this company's approach isn't beaten by another approach by then though.

IBM is saying they'll have a 1 million qbit machine by 2030.
https://fortune.com/2020/09/15/ibm-quantum-computer-1-million-qubits-by-2030/

Right now it's all about how many qbits you can pack into the machine and advancements are happening quickly. We might see a Moore's law for quantum processors play out for the next 20 to 50 years.

Edit: For quantum computing, people are talking about Neven's Law.

Neven’s law is named after Hartmut Neven, the director of Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab. Hartmut has stated that the growth in power with each new improvement to Google's best quantum processor is growing at not just an exponential rate, like in Moore's Law, but at a doubly-exponential rate.

“Since Moore's Law is a doubling function, we can represent Moore's Law like this, where n represents a two year interval:

n Classical computing power (2n)
* 1 2
* 2 4
* 3 8
* 4 16
* 5 32
* 6 64
* 7 128
* 8 256
* 9 512
* 10 1024

Neven's Law with double exponential growth would look something like this, where n equals each new improvement to Google's quantum processor:

n 2n 2(2n) Quantum Computing Power Relative to Classical Computing Power

* 1 2 22 4
* 2 4 24 16
* 3 8 28 256
* 4 16 216 65,536
* 5 32 232 4,294,967,296
* 6 64 264 18,446,744,073,709,551,616
* 7 128 2128 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38
* 8 256 2256 1.1579208923731619542357098500869e+77
* 9 512 2512 1.3407807929942597099574024998206e+154
* 10 1024 21024 1.797693134862315907729305190789e+308

https://community.hitachivantara.co...-replaced-by-nevens-law-for-quantum-computing

 

[256bits]

You are doing light quantum computing on 1-qbit everyday with your polarized sunglasses and LCD screens.
Problem with light is that it doesn't interfere across light paths, so the development of photon multi-qbit quantum computers lagged behind the other methods. And some people do it every other day with their modified double slit experiments.

Brief synopsis
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...ter-exceeds-fastest-classical-supercomputers/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boson_sampling

 

[f95toli]

NV centres are one of several less mature technologies for QC. "Less mature" here means that no one has been able to create even a small demonstration processor yet (with say 5 qubits), something that is routine for ion traps and superconducting qubits.
Hence, there are many, many steps between where the field of QC with NV centres is today and a practical QC. So no, it is definitively not going to be available in 5 years.

There are a few things that are a bit odd about their c;laims. Firstly, there are lots of system that exhibit ~ms stability (or even much better), at least if you by "stability" mean T1 (relaxation time); the more important figure of merit for a QC is T2 (and T2*) so many competing platforms are "better" in this respect, so it is not clear why they would claim this as an advantage.
Secondly the website has one statement that is outright weird: "No need for absolute zero temperature" ...If I am generous I guess one could interpret that to mean "very low temperatures" but it is still factually incorrect (not platform "requires absolute zero") and it doesn't help their credibility.

 

[Jarvis323]

NV centres are one of several less mature technologies for QC. "Less mature" here means that no one has been able to create even a small demonstration processor yet (with say 5 qubits), something that is routine for ion traps and superconducting qubits.
Hence, there are many, many steps between where the field of QC with NV centres is today and a practical QC. So no, it is definitively not going to be available in 5 years.

The company, supposedly, is already selling their Gen 1 model with 5 qbit processors (the size of a rack space).

The company has already built a number of "Quantum development kits" in rack units, each with around 5 qubits to work with, and it's placing them with customers already, for benchmarking, integration, co-design opportunities and to let companies start working out where they'll be advantageous once they hit the market in a ~50-qubit "Quantum Accelerator" product form by around 2025.

New Atlas article on Quantum Brilliance
https://quantumbrilliance.com/quantum-brilliance-hardware

 

[pbuk]

There are a few things that are a bit odd about their c;laims. Firstly, there are lots of system that exhibit ~ms stability (or even much better), at least if you by "stability" mean T1 (relaxation time); the more important figure of merit for a QC is T2 (and T2*) so many competing platforms are "better" in this respect, so it is not clear why they would claim this as an advantage.

Particularly when they claim that millisecond stability is a thousand times better than 150 microseconds!

Their CSO seems to speak more like their Head of Marketing, here's another example:

“The future is heterogeneous — the idea of a single computer that can do everything is gone,” he said.
...
“Over time some technologies will fade out. The ultimate endpoint for us is to be the quantum computer for everything.”

The company, supposedly, is already selling their Gen 1 model with 5 qbit processors (the size of a rack space).

New Atlas article on Quantum Brilliance
https://quantumbrilliance.com/quantum-brilliance-hardware

The words in that article seem very carefully chosen and do NOT include 'selling':

The company has already built a number of "Quantum development kits" in rack units, each with around 5 qubits to work with

That doesn't say that they work properly.

it's placing them with customers already

In this context, placing can mean "when serial number 3 works we'll let you borrow it until it breaks again".

 

[f95toli]

Also "5 qubits" does not mean a 5-qubit QPU.
How the qubits are coupled together and if/how they are a controlled makes a huge difference, 5 uncoupled qubits is not hard to make. 5 coupled qubits where there is no way to adjust the level of coupling or address individual qubits is also not very hard (in an ion trap that would just be long string of ions)

If you buy a diamond from Element-6 (the main supplier) you could easily have hundreds of NV centres (which are just defects in a diamond), each one is technically a qubit but you can't really use it for anything.

 

[.Scott]

A related article from phys.org.