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In 1947, the first transistor, the basic construction block for a digital computer, was made by using a semiconductor material that is thought to be ideal for the task: Germanium. The idea of using silicon did not appear until the middle of the next decade, and it was not until 1960 that a thin layer of oxidized silicon was added, which is located in today’s most commonly used transistors.
Quantum calculation, a great hope for solving problems outside the reach of today’s computers, is still struggling to reach its own silicon moment. Some of the largest technological companies began to enhance their attempts to build a working machine, convinced that the field was finally a threshold between an interesting scientific experiment and a practical engineering challenge.
However, there is no consensus on the best way to make the most basic elements of quantum computers, known as quits – or indeed, whether future machines will be based on a number of different technologies, not just one, with different types of machines that correspond to different computer problems.
This lack of agreement on something so basic is sobering a reminder of how far away quantum Calculation still has to go to prove yourself. It also suggests that the race that will be shaped between some of the biggest technological companies is likely to produce winners and losers, because some Qubits fails.
This week was an Amazon order, a relative newcomer in the area of quantum hardware, to add to a number of technologies. Its entry, known as Cats QubitsIt was named after the Schrödinger cat, one of the craziest experiments of thoughts in science (the Austrian physicist used his cat paradox to stop that it was pointless to think that a cat closed from sight could be alive and dead at the same time, opposite).
Cat Qubits follows its origin to research at Yale University about ten years ago, first pined by French start-up Alice & Bob, whose last month’s collection of € 100 million is a sign of greater confidence that it is technology He is ready to cross outside the lab. The components are designed in a way that suppresses one of the usual types of errors that affect all quits, making them less prone to “noise” that is built inside the machines while systems are obtained in a scale.
All quantum computers work by coding information on multiple quits to compensate for the instability of each individual component. The less mistakes quibits are, the less needed. Amazon’s first rudimentary quantum chip, made of nine Qubita, achieves performance of other types of quantum chip using 50-100, according to Oskar Painter, Head of Quantum Hardware of the company.
A company’s progress, marked with paper in Naturefollowed Microsoft’s request To finally have something to show from his 20-year search for an even more radical type of Qubit, based on the exploitation of a new state of matter.
The prototype chips of two companies – Microsoft’s major 1 and Amazon Ocelot – still stand behind the leaders on the field for years, such as Google’s Willow and IBM Herone. These and others are based on different types of quit with longer records. Even if Microsoft and Amazon are right claim that they have top -notch components, they have a long way to show that they can be used to build practical machines that skip competition.
Obviously parallels with the current race between the biggest technological companies to develop their own AI chips. Painter says that Amazon’s goal in Quanto is the same as in Ai: while his cloudy hand, AWS, plans to offer customers every type of chip on the market, his own internal chip will act as an anchor. Because of this, efforts for chips, both in AI and Quantum, are of strategic importance for the greatest technological companies.
In Quanto, it will depend a lot on whether the race turns out to be a sprint or marathon. A recent progress, such as progress in the correction of errors Google reported Last year, until the end of the decade, they brought optimistic assessment of a practical quantum computer. However, NVIDIA Executive Director Jensen Huang shaken the quantum world earlier this year with his 15-30 year estimate, while the Amazon painter predicts that working machines are still 10-20 years.
If the careful assessments are correct, it is questionable how many quantum research efforts today survive. For even the best funded start-up, waiting for a decade would be punished. And as different quantum architecture increases, some consolidation of the less basic technologies seems to be likely.
