Enlarge / Google’s Sycamore processor. (credit: Google) In 2019, word filtered out that a quantum computer built by Google had performed calculations that the company claimed would be effectively impossible to replicate on supercomputing hardware. That turned out to not be entirely correct, since Google had neglected to consider the storage available to supercomputers; if […]
Enlarge (credit: IBM) IBM has announced it has cleared a major hurdle in its effort to make quantum computing useful: it now has a quantum processor, called Eagle, with 127 functional qubits. This makes it the first company to clear the 100-qubit mark, a milestone that’s interesting because the interactions of that many qubits can’t […]
Enlarge (credit: Humphreys et. al.) It is now relatively trivial to determine the order of amino acids in a protein. Figuring out how that order translates to a complicated three-dimensional structure that performs a specific function, however, is extremely challenging. But after decades of slow progress, Google’s DeepMind AI group announced that it has made tremendous […]
Enlarge (credit: Sloan-Kettering) Just one week after Google’s DeepMind AI group finally described its biology efforts in detail, the company is releasing a paper that explains how it analyzed nearly every protein encoded in the human genome and predicted its likely three-dimensional structure—a structure that can be critical for understanding disease and designing treatments. In […]
Enlarge (credit: Biggs, et. al. ) Wearable electronics, like watches and fitness trackers, represent the next logical step after computing went to portable and mobile devices. They’ve sparked an interest in the development of flexible electronics, which could enable wearables to include the things like clothing and backpacks. Flexible electronics, however, run into a problem: […]
Enlarge / Google’s Sycamore processor. (credit: Google) The current generation of quantum hardware has been termed “NISQ”: noisy, intermediate-scale quantum processors. “Intermediate-scale” refers to a qubit count that is typically in the dozens, while “noisy” references the fact that current qubits frequently produce errors. These errors can be caused by problems setting or reading the […]
Enlarge / It may look nearly featureless, but it’s meant to contain 80 qubits. (credit: Rigetti Computing) Today, a quantum-computing startup has announced that it will take a significant departure in its designs for future quantum processors. Rather than building a monolithic processor as everyone else has, Rigetti Computing will build smaller collections of qubits […]
Enlarge / Fluorescent tagged DNA is the key to a new storage system. (credit: Gerald Barber, Virginia Tech) DNA-based data storage appears to offer solutions to some of the problems created by humanity’s ever-growing capacity to create data we want to hang on to. Compared to most other media, DNA offers phenomenal data densities. If […]
Enlarge / The robotic train. (credit: Oliveri et. al.) One of the most impressive developments in recent years has been the production of AI systems that can teach themselves to master the rules of a larger system. Notable successes have included experiments with chess and Starcraft. Given that self-teaching capability, it’s tempting to think that […]
Enlarge / The line down the middle is where the trapped ions reside. (credit: Honeywell) About a year ago, Honeywell announced that it had entered the quantum computing race with a technology that was different from anything else on the market. The company claimed that because the performance of its qubits was so superior to those […]