Enlarge / The current generation of hardware. (credit: D-Wave) Tracking quantum computing has been a bit confusing in that there are multiple approaches to it. Most of the effort goes toward what are called gate-based computers, which allow you to perform logical operations on individual qubits. These are well understood theoretically and can perform a […]
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 / One of the 40 kg mirrors that has approached its quantum ground state. (credit: Matt Heintze/Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab) Objects that obey the rules of quantum mechanics behave very differently from those in the familiar world around us. That difference leads to an obvious question: is it possible to get an everyday item to start […]
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 […]
(credit: D-Wave) Early on in D-Wave’s history, the company made bold claims about its quantum annealer outperforming algorithms run on traditional CPUs. Those claims turned out to be premature, as improvements to these algorithms pulled the traditional hardware back in front. Since then, the company has been far more circumspect about its performance claims, even […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) One of the quietest revolutions of our current century has been the entry of quantum mechanics into our everyday technology. It used to be that quantum effects were confined to physics laboratories and delicate experiments. But modern technology increasingly relies on quantum mechanics for its basic operation, and […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) One of the quietest revolutions of our current century has been the entry of quantum mechanics into our everyday technology. It used to be that quantum effects were confined to physics laboratories and delicate experiments. But modern technology increasingly relies on quantum mechanics for its basic operation, and […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) One of the quietest revolutions of our current century has been the entry of quantum mechanics into our everyday technology. It used to be that quantum effects were confined to physics laboratories and delicate experiments. But modern technology increasingly relies on quantum mechanics for its basic operation, and […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images) One of the quietest revolutions of our current century has been the entry of quantum mechanics into our everyday technology. It used to be that quantum effects were confined to physics laboratories and delicate experiments. But modern technology increasingly relies on quantum mechanics for its basic operation, and […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Aurich Lawson) One of the quietest revolutions of our current century has been the entry of quantum mechanics into our everyday technology. It used to be that quantum effects were confined to physics laboratories and delicate experiments. But modern technology increasingly relies on quantum mechanics for its basic operation, and […]