Raphael Thys
Representational stock image for a quantum computer bpawesom/iStock
Boston-based QuEra Computing has ambitious plans to launch a 10,000 qubit quantum computer by 2026, which could beat the fastest supercomputers. In a press release, the company has unveiled its roadmap for the near future, including a new machine with 10 logical qubits by the end of the year.
Quantum computers are the next frontier of computing that can theoretically leave today's supercomputers biting the dust. However, scientists have yet to solve the problem of high error rates in them. While silicon-based computers err at the rate of one in one billion bits, quantum computers can have one failure in every 1,000 quantum bits (qubits) they use.
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This is due to the nature of qubits, the data storage units of quantum computers. Unlike conventional bits that can be 0 or 1 at a time, qubits can exist in superposition states, simultaneously occupying values of 0 and 1. While this allows calculations at a greater scale, they are also error-prone, limiting their adoption in real-world scenarios.
Reducing errors in quantum computing
Research institutes and companies like QuEra are working on approaches to limit these errors by using quantum properties like entanglement, where the same data is stored in multiple places to reduce the chances of error-prone calculations.
Another approach is using logical qubits where an error correction code is applied to regular qubits, which verifies the likelihood of error occurrence, corrects the error, and then proceeds with the calculation.
Using this approach, Google's Quantum AI lab demonstrated an error rate of 2.9 percent, while the University of Oxford managed an error rate of less than 0.01 percent. However, the latter only used two-qubit gates, which is too few for a quantum computer to be market-ready.
QuEra, on the other hand, has demonstrated quantum computers with 48 logical qubits while also ensuring that the error rate is 0.5 percent. This is also the largest number of logical qubits tested at a time on a quantum computer to date.
QuEra wants its quantum computers to overtake supercomputers by 2026wildpixel/iStock
QuEra's pipeline of quantum computers
In a recent press release, the US-based firm unveiled a roadmap of fault-tolerant quantum computers it plans to build soon.
Later this year, the company will launch its quantum computer with 256 physical qubits and 10 logical qubits. While this computer isn't designed to perform quantum computations for meaningful results, it will be the first to launch with error correction. The main purpose of the computer will be to make available a platform where software programmers can test their code for future quantum computers.
In 2025. the company wants to roll out a 3,000-qubit quantum computer with 30 logical qubits, which will be more of a stepping stone toward its main target the following year.
In 2026, QuEra wants to unleash the 10,000 physical qubits quantum computer with 100 logical qubits. The company is confident that not only will this machine compute without errors, but it will supersede the capabilities of supercomputers today.
QuEra isn't the only company with such ambitious goals. Last year, IBM also demonstrated error-correction technology with a 127-qubit Heron chip. Its commercial launch, however, is expected by the end of the decade.
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