QUANTUM COMPUTING COMES TO THE DESKTOP

Quantum computers (“Quantum Computing Makes a Quantum Leap,” 20 July, 2021) are the stuff of scientists’ dreams: machines that can solve a problem in minutes that would take a conventional computer years to work through.
The difference: conventional computers process bits of information sequentially—one at a time—as a series of digital ones and zeroes. 
In contrast, quantum computers are based on qubits, an electron spinning in a magnetic field. Thanks to the quirks of quantum physics, a qubit can serve as a one and a zero at the same time.
That speeds a computer’s “thought processes” exponentially. 
However, quantum computers are temperamental. 
Typically, they must be isolated from even the slightest bump or vibration that might jostle a spinning electron or they lose their train of thought; they need to be surrounded by shields to defend them from external magnetic fields.
Also, they have required cooling to near absolute zero.
Room-temperature quantum computers have been on lab benches for the past two decades, but have never been made to work in what could be a commercial setting.
That has left quantum computing as the province of skunkworks in major universities or giant corporations such as Google and IBM, where entire rooms can be devoted to a quantum computer and its assortment of support systems.
But that’s yesterday’s version of quantum computing. Quantum Brilliance (QB), a German-Australian start-up spun off from the Australian National University, has one for tomorrow, it says.
QB claims its quantum computer is the size of a rack unit or a desktop computer and runs at room temperature with far less coddling.
Soon, the unit will be reduced to the size of a graphics card; after that, the company promises a version small enough to fit into a smartphone.
QB’s innovations include embedding their qubits in diamond doped with nitrogen atoms; the pattern of the atomic structure holds the qubits steady while shuttling their electronic impulses to targeted gates.
As a result, QB’s computers can work as much as a thousand times longer than previous quantum computer designs before making mistakes. Although that means a working time of milliseconds instead of microseconds, that can be long enough for the machine to solve problems.
The company has placed test units of its rack-size machines with commercial users for testing, assessment, and co-development and hopes to have a market-ready unit perfected by 2027.
TRENDPOST: If Quantum Brilliance’s technology proves up at commercial scale, it will disrupt the foundations of quantum computing and bring unimaginable computing speed and power to businesses and research labs before 2030, then to the rest of us not long after that.

Quantum Brilliance’s rack-size quantum computer and an illustration of the portable version it hopes to develop.
Credit: Quantum Brilliance