A UK-based quantum computing company has claimed to have harnessed an exotic form of subatomic matter for the first time, a feat they claim could revolutionize efforts to build machines more powerful than conventional computers.
scientist with U.K. and usQuantinuum-based Quantinuum, along with collaborators at Caltech and Harvard University, say they not only produced but manipulated a strange new form of matter, anything that isn’t Abelian, in order to perform quantum computations.
Ilyas Khan, founder and chief product officer of Quantinuum, said: “We found something crucial that people can now cheer up and believe that this quantum computing paradigm is real.”
The claimed breakthrough, which has not yet been formally vetted by independent researchers, could provide an important new alternative to the way of building “fault-tolerant” quantum computers.
Ilyas Khan, Founder and Chief Product Officer, Quantinuum
So far, the field of quantum computing has been dominated by GoogleIBM and China’s Zu Chongzhi quantum computer.
Their method uses superconducting materials in which information is encoded in quantum positions of individual particles called “qubits.”
But the development of quantum computers comparable to classical computers has been hampered by the fact that quantum particles can change states randomly and without warning — which would require extensive error correction built into the computer’s design.
Non-Abelians offer a completely different approach – one that theoretically reduces the need for error correction.
Like most things in the weird subatomic quantum world, it’s hard for non-Amblers to understand.
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They are described as “quasiparticles” because they violate the rules of how regular matter such as protons, electrons and photons behave.
They only exist in two dimensions, but theorists have long predicted that they can be created under certain conditions, such as in powerful electromagnetic fields or in the ultracool circuits of experimental quantum computers.
The new method does away with the qubits associated with individual particles and instead distributes them throughout the quasiparticle cloud.
Similarly, Kahn explained the difference between a single bird flying in the sky and a flock of birds moving in a coordinated fashion.
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Computations could be performed, at least in theory, by manipulating the motion of quasiparticle clouds.
This is what Quantiuum says it has now demonstrated using its H2 quantum processor, which it has been developing in “stealth mode” for the past seven years.
Will this give Quantium an edge over the competition?
“I wouldn’t venture to say it’s an absolutely successful approach,” said Oxford University physicist Professor Steven Simon.
“But that puts them in the same league.”