Quantum Computer; The latest breakthrough!

5 min readFeb 28, 2021

Richard Feynman was one of the first to suggest that quantum mechanics can be harnessed to make a new type of computer! Almost 40 years later and we are finally seeing the emergence of these types of machines.

Difference between a traditional computer and a quantum computer!

A traditional computer uses bits that either encode as 0 or 1. Whereas a quantum computer uses qubits which can be in the superposition of zero or one! At the same time until observed! This would theoretically allow a quantum computer to process a vast number of calculations simultaneously. These qubits can be made of atoms molecules or even photons.

Hurdles in Quantum computer!

Qubits are tricky to manipulate! Since any instability would cause them to fall outside of their quantum state. This is a really tough problem! Because you need to tell the qubit a command while isolating them from outside interference.

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So as of right now, we are trying to figure out how to maintain qubit stability with proper error-correcting. But it is important to keep in mind that quantum computers are not really meant to replace conventional computers. There are different types of computing problems and these vary in complexity. These three subsets include problems that classical computers can solve in linear time! Then there’s np in which solutions are easy to verify but tricky to implement! And then finally we have np-hard problems! Which are difficult to solve and no known algorithm has yet to solve this efficiently.

Quantum computer can solve complex problems!

Now quantum computers theoretically can solve p and some np problems! But it’s going to take a very innovative quantum algorithm! In simple terms, quantum computers may be able to do extensive chemistry particle research. And predictive modelling such as weather forecasting. But we are looking at thousands maybe even millions of qubits! With error correction to get to this type of everyday application and that is a few ways away!

Let’s just hope it’s not going to take another 30 years like fusion power. Regardless we are seeing some pretty unique noisy cubic computers. Which are coming out right now and they are the first steps towards something practical. Now, most of these machines are using atoms for qubits and typically their performance is measured by quantum volume. IBM intel google Honeywell and several other companies are racing towards reaching several thousand quantum volumes. So it will be very interesting to see how this will pan out.

Types of quantum computers & ongoing projects

Now the biggest challenge for these types of computers is that they need to have their qubits cooled down to near absolute zero! So it’s not something that’s going to sit on your desk anytime soon. Their purpose is more towards improving processing connections between qubits and lowering error rates for quantum computing. So you can kind of think of these machines as first-generation quantum computers. They are paving ways for more advanced designs now this kind leads us to a different approach for qubit composition.

Photonic computer

Photonic computing may be able to solve the cryogenic problem! And this would involve circuits and optical crystals to manipulate light may be at room temperature. So a lot of companies are already focusing on how to manipulate photonic qubits! But one recent notable development involves joint quantum and their single photonic transistor. They claim that 1 million of these transistors could fit inside a couple of millimetres and process 10 billion photonic qubits every second!

The photonic chip has numerous holes and this basically traps light! But more specifically quantum dots store information about the photons and their interactions. Theoretically, this is completely scalable and it does bypass the cryogenic requirements of older quantum computers. So it will be very interesting to see if this emerges past the research phase.

Another neat thing about photonic processing is that it can integrate with fibre optic communications! And create very powerful networks! Maybe possibly quantum internet!

Juicing project

Now another interesting development is the juicing project in china. This processor utilizes optical circuits for calculations. The chip basically detects photons and they claim that it can calculate 10 billion times faster than google’s current quantum computer. However, we have to keep in mind that there is no confirmation of this and it’s years away from tackling everyday computational problems!.

Xanadu’s photonic quantum computer

Another really important development is Xanadu’s photonic quantum computer. It’s also the first commercially available cloud platform of its kind. So they have 12 to 24 qubit processors! which can run at room temperature and this approach will work towards a universal fault-tolerant content computing system. That networks multiple processors together the chips are made from silicon nitrate and they include squeezers. Which are the inputs gates and photon detectors which are the outputs! So this is known as continuous-variable quantum computing and it does not employ single-photon generators.

So it’s basically using squeeze states consisting of superpositions of multiple photons! And this type of computer might actually be better for error correction and fault tolerance. Platonic chips could also be used for neuromorphic computing and create very advanced AI systems.

Neuromorphic chip!

Now let’s talk about neuromorphic! which uses a different type of architecture that utilizes neural networks! and this is intended to basically mimic the human brain! And its neurons so if you want to build the next humanoid robot from x Machina. Then this is probably the hardware that you want to have! Anyways several groups are already working on the basic framework for neuromorphic processors.

One particular team has already developed a neuromorphic chip. Which conceptually works on hundreds of optical neurons. A neural network basically takes the sum of these artificial neurons and makes a decision based on these inputs! And then sends it to the next network! once again this is not something that is made for your typical desktop computer. It’s more specifically designed for AI applications. But it does exemplify that developing a photonic processor could create a very rapid revolution in computing.

What can we expect?

We’ve only briefly touched on some of the projects that are happening right now! in relation to the quantum computing world! But as every year passes by we are getting very close to something that can actually, calculate something practical. And we think in 50 years! We are going to have computers which are very different from the ones we are using right now. let us know in the comment section what you think?

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