Quantum computers become desktop size

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Jim
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Quantum computers become desktop size

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https://www.redsharknews.com/quantum-co ... ktop-sized

Quantum computing is coming on leaps and bounds. Now there’s an operating system available on a chip thanks to a Cambridge University-led consortia with a vision is make quantum computers as transparent and well known as RaspberryPi.

This “sensational breakthrough” is likened by the Cambridge Independent Press to the moment during the 1960s when computers shrunk from being room-sized to being sat on top of a desk.

Around 50 quantum computers have been built to date, and they all use different software – there is no quantum equivalent of Windows, IOS or Linux. The new project will deliver an OS that allows the same quantum software to run on different types of quantum computing hardware.

The system, Deltaflow.OS (full name Deltaflow-on-ARTIQ) has been designed by Cambridge Uni startup Riverlane. It runs on a chip developed by consortium member SEEQC using a fraction of the space necessary in previous hardware. SEEQC is headquartered in the US with a major R&D site in the UK.

“In its most simple terms, we have put something that once filled a room onto a chip the size of a coin, and it works,” said Dr. Matthew Hutchings, chief product officer and co-founder of SEEQC in a press statement.

“This is as significant for the future of quantum computers as the microchip itself was for commercialising traditional computers, allowing them to be produced cost-effectively and at scale.”

Quantum computers store information in the form of quantum bits, or qubits. Like Schrödinger's cat (which would not have had the colloquial impact had he chosen an inanimate object), qubits can exist in two different information states at the same time.

But for quantum computers to be truly powerful they must be able to scale up to include many more qubits, making it possible to solve some seriously challenging problems.

“Where it took a rackful of electronics to control the qubits, now it’s available on a chip the size of a penny,” Hutchings explained. “All the functionality is on a chip, so we’ve solved the issue for the quantum era.”
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