 |
scientist Jerry Chow performs a quantum computing experiment at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Jon Simon/IBM |
Excerpt from computerworld.com
By Sharon Gaudin
IBM scientists say they have made two critical advances in an
industrywide effort to build a practical quantum computer, shaving years
off the time expected to have a working system.
“This is
critical,” said Jay Gambetta, IBM’s manager of theory of quantum
computing. “The field has got a lot more competitive. You could say the
[quantum computing] race is just starting to begin… This is a small step on the journey but it’s an important one.”
Gambetta told Computerworld
that IBM’s scientists have created a square quantum bit circuit design,
which could be scaled to much larger dimensions. This new
two-dimensional design also helped the researchers figure out a way to
detect and measure errors.
Quantum computing
is a fragile process and can be easily thrown off by vibrations, light
and temperature variations. Computer scientists doubt they’ll ever get
the error rate down to that in a classical computer.
Because
of the complexity and sensitivity of quantum computing, scientists
need to be able to detect errors, figure out where and why they’re
happening and prevent them from recurring.
IBM says its advancement takes the first step in that process.
“It
tells us what errors are happening,” Gambetta said. “As you make the
square [circuit design] bigger, you’ll get more information so you can
see where the error was and you can correct for it. We’re showing now
that we have the ability to detect, and we’re working toward the next
step, which would allow you to see where and why the problem is
happening so you can stop it from happening.”
Quantum computing is
widely thought to be the next great step in the field of computing,
potentially surpassing classical supercomputers in large-scale, complex
calculations.
Quantum computing would be used to cull big data,
searching for patterns. It’s hoped that these computers will take on
questions that would lead to finding cures for cancer or discovering
distant planets – jobs that might take today’s supercomputers hundreds
of years to calculate.
IBM’s announcement is significant in the worlds of both computing and physics, where quantum theory first found a foothold.
Quantum
computing, still a rather mysterious technology, combines both
computing and quantum mechanics, which is one of the most complex, and
baffling, areas of physics. This branch of physics evolved out of an
effort to explain things that traditional physics is unable to.
With quantum mechanics, something can be in two states at the
same time. It can be simultaneously positive and negative, which isn’t
possible in the world as we commonly know it.
For instance, each
bit, also known as a qubit, in a quantum machine can be a one and a zero
at the same time. When a qubit is built, it can’t be predicted whether
it will be a one or a zero. A qubit has the possibility of being
positive in one calculation and negative in another. Each qubit changes
based on its interaction with other qubits.
Because of all of
these possibilities, quantum computers don’t work like classical
computers, which are linear in their calculations. A classical computer
performs one step and then another. A quantum machine can calculate
all of the possibilities at one time, dramatically speeding up the
calculation.
However, that speed will be irrelevant if users can’t be sure that the calculations are accurate.
That’s where IBM’s advances come into play.
“This
is absolutely key,” said Jim Tully, an analyst with Gartner. “You do
the computation but then you need to read the results and know they’re
accurate. If you can’t do that, it’s kind of meaningless. Without being
able to detect errors, they have no way of knowing if the calculations
have any validity.”
If scientists can first detect and then
correct these errors, it’s a major step in the right direction to
building a working quantum computing system capable of doing enormous
calculations.
“Quantum computing is a hard concept for most to
understand, but it holds great promise,” said Dan Olds, an analyst with
The Gabriel Consulting Group. “If we can tame it, it can compute certain
problems orders of magnitude more quickly than existing computers. The
more organizations that are working on unlocking the potential of
quantum computing, the better. It means that we’ll see something real
that much sooner.”
However, there’s still debate over whether a quantum computer already exists.
A
year ago, D-Wave Systems Inc. announced that it had built a quantum
system, and that NASA, Google and Lockheed Martin had been testing them.
Many
in the computer and physics communities doubt that D-Wave has built a
real quantum computer. Vern Brownell, CEO of the company, avows that
they have.
“I think that quantum computing shows promise, but it’s going to be quite a while before we see systems for sale,” said Olds.
IBM’s
Gambetta declined to speculate on whether D-Wave has built a quantum
computing but said the industry is still years away from building a
viable quantum system.
“Quantum computing could be potentially
transformative, enabling us to solve problems that are impossible or
impractical to solve today,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president
and director of IBM Research, in a statement.
IBM’s research was published in Wednesday’s issue of the journal Nature Communications.
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/ygbiKRn_OVc/ibm-advances-bring-quantum-computing.html
IBM advances bring quantum computing closer to reality
No comments:
Post a Comment