Quantum Computing News and Discussions

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Rethinking the quantum chip: Engineers present new design for superconducting quantum processor
https://phys.org/news/2024-12-rethinkin ... essor.html
by Paul Dailing, University of Chicago

Researchers at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) have realized a new design for a superconducting quantum processor, aiming at a potential architecture for the large-scale, durable devices the quantum revolution demands.

Unlike the typical quantum chip design that lays the information-processing qubits onto a 2D grid, the team from the Cleland Lab has designed a modular quantum processor comprising a reconfigurable router as a central hub. This enables any two qubits to connect and entangle, where in the older system, qubits can only talk to the qubits physically nearest to them.

"A quantum computer won't necessarily compete with a classical computer in things like memory size or CPU size," said UChicago PME Prof. Andrew Cleland.

"Instead, they take advantage of a fundamentally different scaling: Doubling a classical computer's computational power requires twice as big a CPU, or twice the clock speed. Doubling a quantum computer only requires one additional qubit."

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BMs Using Largest Quantum Computers With Largest Supercomputers
December 11, 2024 by Brian Wang

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/12/i ... uters.html
IBM is using the largest quantum computers with the largest supercomputers. They have already use these hybrid systems to advance science like larger accurate quantum simulations. They are building even larger quantum systems and larger supercomputers.

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Record cold quantum refrigerator paves way for reliable quantum computers
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-cold-quan ... iable.html
by Chalmers University of Technology

Quantum computers require extreme cooling to perform reliable calculations. One of the challenges preventing quantum computers from entering society is the difficulty of freezing the qubits to temperatures close to absolute zero.

Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Maryland, U.S., have engineered a new type of refrigerator that can autonomously cool superconducting qubits to record low temperatures, paving the way for more reliable quantum computation.

Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize fundamental technologies in various sectors of society, with applications in medicine, energy, encryption, AI, and logistics. While the building blocks of a classical computer—bits—can take a value of either 0 or 1, the most common building blocks in quantum computers—qubits—can have a value of 0 and 1 simultaneously.

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Quantum experiment generates long-range entanglement in 54-qubit system
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-quantum-g ... qubit.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Phys.org

The operation and performance of quantum computers relies on the ability to realize and control entanglement between multiple qubits. Yet entanglement between many qubits is inherently susceptible to noise and imperfections in quantum gates.

In recent years, quantum physicists and engineers worldwide have thus been trying to develop more robust protocols to realize and control entanglement. To be most effective for real-world applications, these approaches should reliably support long-range entanglement, or in other words ensure that qubits remain entangled even when they are separated by large distances.

Researchers at IBM Quantum, University of Cologne and Harvard University set out to demonstrate one of these protocols in an experimental setting.

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How PsiQuantum plans to build world's largest quantum computer by 2027

11 February 2025

With an investment of AU$1 billion, PsiQuantum is planning to build a photonic quantum computer with a million qubits, far larger than any in existence today - and the firm says it will be ready in just two years

https://www.newscientist.com/article/24 ... r-by-2027/



A PsiQuantum integrated photonic chip. Credit: PsiQuantum

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Powerful quantum computers in years not decades, says Microsoft

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3e3252gj8o

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Quantum Computing Has a New Player: Microsoft’s Majorana 1
The chip has a unique material called a 'topoconductor.'
By Josh Gulick February 21, 2025

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/q ... majorana-1
Only a little more than a month after Google announced its Willow quantum computing chip, Microsoft is revealing its own. The Majorana 1, Microsoft says, makes use of a topoconductor, which is material that allows for more reliability and scalability from the chip’s qubits.

“We took a step back and said ‘OK, let’s invent the transistor for the quantum age. What properties does it need to have?’” said Microsoft technical fellow Chetan Nayak in a statement. “And that’s really how we got here—it’s the particular combination, the quality and the important details in our new materials stack that have enabled a new kind of qubit and ultimately our entire architecture.”

Quantum computing chips are prone to more errors than a classical computer because they rely on probabilistic measurements of classical bits. And the errors get worse as chips are created with more qubits. Google addressed that problem when it designed Willow, which has real-time error correction capabilities. Microsoft, on the other hand, says that it incorporated “error resistance at the hardware level.”

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Amazon debuts Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip

February 27, 2025

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip. The news brings it into line with its big cloud rivals Microsoft and Google, which have also unveiled their own quantum chips in recent months, respectively Majorana and Willow.

The cloud computing giant has long been investing in the quantum computing space, starting in 2019 with its Braket quantum computing-as-a-service launched in partnership with industry players such as QuEra and Rigetti.

Quantum computing builds on principles borrowed from quantum mechanics, leveraging “quantum bits” (qubits) to perform complex calculations more quickly than traditional computers. Applications potentially include drug discovery, cryptography and security, and AI.

Building quantum chips that can run with reduced errors — one of the gating factors for quantum computing now — will be central to advancing quantum computing overall.

Ocelot was developed in partnership with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and integrates two small silicon microchips (pictured above) stacked atop each other. The company says that the chip’s design could reduce costs associated with error-correction by as much as 90%.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/27/amazo ... ting-chip/

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More on that by SciTech Daily:

https://scitechdaily.com/chinas-new-qua ... n-googles/

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D-Wave claims its quantum computers can solve a problem of scientific relevance much faster than classical methods
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-d-quantum ... vance.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of quantum computer researchers at quantum computer maker D-Wave, working with an international team of physicists and engineers, is claiming that its latest quantum processor has been used to run a quantum simulation faster than could be done with a classical computer.

In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they ran a quantum version of a mathematical approximation regarding how matter behaves when it changes states, such as from a gas to a liquid—in a way that they claim would be nearly impossible to conduct on a traditional computer.

Over the past several years, D-Wave has been working on developing quantum annealers, which are a subtype of quantum computer created to solve very specific types of problems. Notably, landmark claims made by researchers at the company have at times been met with skepticism by others in the field.

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MIT’s new circuit achieves record quantum coupling, could 10x processing speed
Aamir Khollam
Fri, May 2, 2025 at 2:16 PM PDT

Quantum computers promise to solve problems far beyond the reach of classical machines, from simulating new materials to transforming AI.

But one key challenge stands in the way: speed.

To be reliable, quantum computers must perform calculations and error corrections before their fragile quantum bits, or qubits, lose coherence.

Now, MIT researchers have built a new superconducting circuit that could dramatically speed up this process.

At its core is a newly invented component, the “quarton coupler,” which enables a record-breaking level of interaction between light and matter, crucial for reading and controlling qubits.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mit-circuit- ... ccounter=1

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Physicists set new world record for qubit operation accuracy

by University of Oxford
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-physicist ... uracy.html

Physicists at the University of Oxford have set a new global benchmark for the accuracy of controlling a single quantum bit, achieving the lowest-ever error rate for a quantum logic operation—just 0.000015%, or one error in 6.7 million operations. This record-breaking result represents nearly an order of magnitude improvement over the previous benchmark, set by the same research group a decade ago.

To put the result in perspective: a person is more likely to be struck by lightning in a given year (1 in 1.2 million) than for one of Oxford's quantum logic gates to make a mistake.

The findings, to be published in Physical Review Letters, are a major advance towards having robust and useful quantum computers.

"As far as we are aware, this is the most accurate qubit operation ever recorded anywhere in the world," said Professor David Lucas, co-author on the paper, from the University of Oxford's Department of Physics. "It is an important step toward building practical quantum computers that can tackle real-world problems."

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IBM claims 'real world' edge in quantum computing race
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-ibm-real- ... antum.html

Technology veteran IBM on Tuesday laid out a plan to have a "practical" quantum computer tackling big problems before the end of this decade.

Current quantum computers are still experimental and face significant challenges, including high error rates. Companies like IBM, Google, and others are working to build more stable and scalable quantum systems.

Real-world innovations that quantum computing has the potential to tackle include developing better fuels, materials, pharmaceuticals, or even new elements. However, delivering on that promise has always seemed some way off.

IBM insists that it is now closer than ever and can map out the path toward having a quantum system that can fulfill actual use cases.

This breakthrough comes thanks to a system being built in a data center in Poughkeepsie, New York, which IBM billed as a pioneering move toward making quantum an everyday work tool.

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Scientists demonstrate unconditional exponential quantum scaling advantage using two 127-qubit computers
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-scientist ... aling.html
by University of Southern California

Quantum computers have the potential to speed up computation, help design new medicines, break codes, and discover exotic new materials—but that's only when they are truly functional.

One key thing that gets in the way: noise or the errors that are produced during computations on a quantum machine—which in fact makes them less powerful than classical computers—until recently.

Daniel Lidar, holder of the Viterbi Professorship in Engineering and Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, has been iterating on quantum error correction, and in a new study along with collaborators at USC and Johns Hopkins, has been able to demonstrate a quantum exponential scaling advantage, using two 127-qubit IBM Quantum Eagle processor-powered quantum computers, over the cloud.

The paper, "Demonstration of Algorithmic Quantum Speedup for an Abelian Hidden Subgroup Problem," is published in the journal Physical Review X.

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Researchers discover more efficient way to route information in quantum computers

by Lindsey Valich, University of Rochester

Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize computing by solving complex problems that stump even today's fastest machines. Scientists are exploring whether quantum computers could one day help streamline global supply chains, create ultra-secure encryption to protect sensitive data against even the most powerful cyberattacks, or even develop more effective drugs by simulating their behavior at the atomic level.

But building efficient quantum computers isn't just about developing faster chips or better hardware. It also requires a deep understanding of quantum mechanics—the strange rules that govern the tiniest building blocks of our universe, such as atoms and electrons—and how to effectively move information through quantum systems.

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-efficient ... antum.html