Reacción a "High-precision quantum computer developed"

From an abstract point of view, quantum computers are a set of quantum bits (qubits) on which operations (quantum logic gates) can be performed, which may affect a single qubit or a pair of them. This general framework can be implemented in various physical systems. The most famous quantum computers, those from IBM and Google, build their qubits using superconducting electrical circuits. In the article now published in Nature by the company Quantinuum, however, so-called trapped ions are used: electrically charged atoms controlled by lasers. Until now, only a small number of qubits had been achieved in this type of device, but this article reports 98 qubits, a number already comparable to that of superconducting circuits. Furthermore, the error rates of the logic gates are extraordinarily low: an average error rate of 0.08% is achieved for two-qubit gates, comparable to and even lower than those of superconducting circuits.

Another advantage is that while in the latter, qubits are always stationary—so that two-qubit gates can only be performed with the nearest qubits—in the scheme presented in this article, the ions can move, so that, in principle, any qubit can interact with any other, resulting in a more dynamic and flexible configuration.

In any case, this type of quantum computer has a long way to go before it can solve practical problems and address applications of interest that conventional computers cannot already solve. The challenges are similar to those of its competitors: how to increase the number of qubits to the thousands or millions, how to further reduce error rates, and how to correct errors effectively.