In a significant development on Wednesday, Microsoft and Quantinuum disclosed their collaboration has crossed a crucial milestone towards the commercial viability of quantum computers by enhancing their dependability. This advancement marks a pivotal moment in the ongoing competition among leading technology corporations like Microsoft, Google (owned by Alphabet), and IBM, alongside various nations, to harness the power of quantum mechanics. This revolutionary approach to computing promises to drastically outpace the capabilities of today's standard silicon-based technology, potentially solving complex scientific challenges that current classical computers would need millions of years to compute.
Quantum computing's core element, the "qubit," is known for its rapid processing ability. However, its susceptibility to errors from even minor disturbances poses a significant challenge. To address this, the field has been exploring ways to create more qubits than necessary and apply error-correction methods to secure a subset of stable and functional qubits for use. A notable advancement in this area was achieved by Microsoft and Quantinuum, who successfully implemented an error-correction algorithm developed by Microsoft on Quantinuum’s qubits, effectively converting 30 physical qubits into approximately four stable ones.
Jason Zander, Microsoft's Executive Vice President for Strategic Missions and Technologies, highlighted the significance of this achievement, stating that the company has managed to demonstrate the highest ratio of stable qubits derived from a quantum chip to date. "Our experiments, exceeding 14,000 in total, were conducted without registering a single error, marking an improvement of up to 800 times over previously recorded efforts," Zander shared with Reuters.
Microsoft anticipates making this technology accessible to its cloud computing clientele in the near future.
Experts in the quantum computing field, including those from Quantinuum and its competitors, often reference the need for roughly 100 stable qubits to surpass the computing power of traditional supercomputers. While neither Microsoft nor Quantinuum disclosed a specific timeline for achieving this target with their new method, Ilyas Khan, the Chief Product Officer at Quantinuum, suggested that this breakthrough could shorten the timeline by at least two years or possibly more.
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