Virginia Ciriano Tejel: A Eureka! moment in computer science.
Quantum MotionFormalized roles for quantum computing software application development programmers have yet to widely populate the tech engineering job-stream and info-boards, but that reality belies the truth of the matter i.e. a lot of quantum is already being worked upon.
One UK firm in this space bidding for maverick game-changing status is Quantum Motion. The organization itself is a quantum computing startup led by academics from UCL and Oxford University.
The quantum computing software application developers at Quantum Motion (yes, they do exist) have made a breakthrough that they claim may advance the viability and production of quantum computers.
Quantum Motion has been able to demonstrate quantum capabilities using industrial-grade silicon chips.
Why is this important? Well, because, traditionally, we have only seen quantum states being built using fully-blown quantum machines, which (as we know) are hugely expensive, hugely fragile and hugely complex with all their cooling requirements and so on.
A quantum computer harnesses some of the deepest laws of physics, normally seen only at the atomic and subatomic level, giving it unique powers to model the natural world. Quantum computers could be more powerful than today’s super computers and capable of performing complex calculations that are otherwise practically impossible.
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The team says that this could ‘set a blueprint’ for how quantum chips can be manufactured at scale using existing manufacturing processes - and the discovery has been peer reviewed in the scientific journal PRX Quantum.
A quantum dynamic shift
According to the team, this discovery changes the dynamics in the development of quantum computing, showing that it is possible to build devices at scale using established processes and fabrication plants.
This contrasts with other industry approaches that are looking at totally new manufacturing processes or even newly discovered quantum particles.
While the applications of quantum computing differ from traditional computers, they are widely agreed to enable us to be more accurate and faster in hugely challenging areas such as drug development and tackling climate change, as well as more everyday problems that have huge numbers of variables – just as in nature – such as transport and logistics.
“We’re hacking the process of creating qubits, so the same kind of technology that makes the chip in a smartphone can be used to build quantum computers,” said John Morton, professor of nanoelectronics at UCL and co-founder of Quantum Motion.
Morton reminds us that it has taken 70 years for transistor development to reach where we are today in computing and (he argues) we can’t spend another 70 years trying to invent new manufacturing processes to build quantum computers.
“We need millions of qubits and an ultra-scalable architecture for building them, our discovery gives us the blueprint to shortcut our way to industrial scale quantum chip production,” added the professor.
The peer reviewed paper demonstrates that Quantum Motion has been able to isolate and measure the quantum state of a single electron for a period of nine seconds on a CMOS chip. The CMOS acronym denotes Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor, so a CMOS is an on-board, battery-powered semiconductor chip that stores information.
Beyond exotic superconductors & quantum superposition
The chips were manufactured at CEA Leti, a large microelectronics facility in Grenoble, France.
“Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, are often realized using exotic technologies such as superconductors or individually trapped atoms. The big breakthrough is the proof that it is possible to create a stable qubit on a standard silicon chip, like those found in any smartphone, rather than one specially created in a lab environment. Combined this creates the potential for stable and scalable quantum computing,” notes Morton and team.
The experiments were performed by Virginia Ciriano Tejel, a PhD student working in a low-temperature laboratory at UCL and co-workers. During operation, the chips are kept in a refrigerated state, cooled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero (−273 degrees Celsius).
Virginia described the Eureka! moment, “Every physics student learns in textbooks that electrons behave like tiny magnets with weird quantum properties, but nothing prepares you for the feeling of wonder in the lab, being able to watch this ‘spin’ of a single electron with your own eyes, sometimes pointing up, sometimes down. It’s thrilling to be a scientist trying to understand the world and at the same time be part of the development of quantum computers.”
Quantum Motion was founded in 2017 and has raised £8million in series A funding, led by INKEF capital, a Dutch based venture capital company. The company is developing a complete technology platform; not just a qubit, but a scalable array of qubits based on the ubiquitous silicon technology already used to manufacture the chips in smartphones and computers.
The goal here for Quantum Motion is work to develop fault tolerant quantum computing architectures that are compatible with the CMOS process. Fault tolerant quantum processors will support the most powerful quantum algorithms, targeting solutions to what are (generally agreed to be) currently intractable problems in fields as diverse as chemistry, medicine and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
So you want to be a software developer? Now you have to decide whether you are going to be a silicon-based software developer, a quantum computing software developer... or (now) a silicon-based quantum software developer... and you just might need a quantum machine to help work that one out.
Inside the dilution refrigerator used to cool the silicon chip.
Quantum MotionMay 13, 2021 at 09:08PM
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UK Firm Proves Quantum Capability On Commercial Silicon Chips - Forbes
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