<div id="isPasted" itemprop="description">“IBM and Google currently have the world’s most powerful quantum computers,” says Prof. Edoardo Charbon, head of the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUA Lab) in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “IBM has just unveiled a 127-qubit machine, while Google’s is 53 qubits.” The scope for making quantum computers even faster is limited, however, due to an upper bound on the number of qubits. But a team of engineers led by Charbon, in collaboration with researchers in the U.K., has just developed a promising method for breaking through this technological barrier. Their approach can read qubits more efficiently, meaning more of them can be packed into quantum processors. Their findings appear in Nature Electronics.<h2>Biochemistry and cryptography</h2>Quantum computers don’t work like the computers we’re used to. Instead of having a separate processor and memory chip, the two are combined into a single unit known as a qubit. These computers use quantum properties such as superposition and entanglement to perform complicated calculations that regular computers could never do in a reasonable timeframe. Potential applications for quantum computers include biochemistry,cryptography and more. The machines used by research groups today have around a dozen qubits. “Our challenge now is to interconnect more qubits into quantum processors – we’re talking hundreds, even thousands – in order to boost the computers’ processing power,” says Charbon. The number of qubits is currently limited by the fact that there’s no technology yet available that can read all the qubits rapidly. “Complicating things further, qubits operate at temperatures close to absolute zero, or –273.15oC,” says Charbon. “That makes reading and controlling them even harder. What engineers typically do is use machines at room temperature and control each qubit individually.”<h2>“It’s a real breakthrough”</h2>Andrea Ruffino, a PhD student at Charbon’s lab, has developed a method enabling nine qubits to be read simultaneously and effectively. What’s more, his approach could be scaled up to larger qubit matrices. “Our method is based on using time and frequency domains,” he explains. “The basic idea is to reduce the number of connections by having three qubits work with a single bond.” EPFL doesn’t have a quantum computer, but that didn’t stop Ruffino. He found a way to emulate qubits and run experiments under nearly the same conditions as those in a quantum computer. “I incorporated quantum dots, which are nanometer-sized semiconductor particles, into a transistor. That gave me something that works the same as qubits,” says Ruffino. He’s the first PhD student in the AQUA Lab to study this topic for his thesis. “Andrea showed that his method works with integrated circuits on regular computer chips, and at temperatures approaching qubit ones,” says Charbon. “It’s a real breakthrough that could lead to systems of large qubit matrices integrated with the necessary electronics. The two types of technology could work together simply, effectively and in a reproducible manner.”<hr>References</div><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-021-00687-6" rel="noopener" target="_blank">"A cryo-CMOS chip that integrates silicon quantum dots and multiplexed dispersive readout electronics",&nbsp;Andrea Ruffino,&nbsp;Tsung-Yeh Yang,&nbsp;John Michniewicz,&nbsp;Yatao Peng,&nbsp;Edoardo Charbon&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;Miguel Fernando Gonzalez-Zalba</a>

Engineers at EPFL have developed a method for reading several qubits – the smallest unit of quantum data – at the same time. Their method paves the way to a new generation of even more powerful quantum computers.

Making quantum computers even more powerful

The world's first room-temperature quantum computer is in the final stages of development and is set to be installed at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth and activated later this year.&nbsp;Unlike other quantum computers, this lunchbox-sized invention does not need extreme sub-zero temperatures to work and is on the cusp of being the most powerful computer ever created. &nbsp;&nbsp;Quantum computers promise a new era in ultra-secure networks, artificial intelligence and therapeutic drugs, and will be able to solve certain problems much faster than today's computers.&nbsp;Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have invented the groundbreaking technology used in the new computer, and are a driving force of the spin-out company Quantum Brilliance that seeks to commercialise the next-generation device.&nbsp;Pawsey and Quantum Brilliance will collaborate with other Australian industry leaders and researchers to develop cutting-edge quantum applications in machine learning, logistics, defence and aerospace.&nbsp;ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt said Quantum Brilliance represents the future of quantum computing.&nbsp;"As Australia's national university, ANU is committed to creating the technologies and industries of tomorrow, today. This work is vital to ensuring the future prosperity of our nation and the world," Professor Schmidt said. &nbsp;<div class="fr-img-space-wrap"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1617015695876-20210323_ANU2902_Andrew_Horsley_ANU-web.jpg" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Dr. Andrew Horsley, CEO of Quantum Brilliance. Photo: Jamie Kidston/ANU"Quantum Brilliance and its work to develop an affordable room temperature, lunchbox-sized quantum computer that will become part of everyday life is the perfect example of this.&nbsp;</div>"The University's goal to create a billion-dollar company in the next five years will happen by supporting research commercialisation for spin-outs like Quantum Brilliance. &nbsp;"Quantum Brilliance is a company in its early days. But while it is early days, backing it now could lead to huge payoffs for all of us."&nbsp;Quantum Brilliance, led by ANU physicists Dr Marcus Doherty and Dr Andrew Horsley, has used synthetic diamonds to develop quantum microprocessors. &nbsp;The team's innovative platform enables the high computational power of quantum computing to be used for more widespread applications.&nbsp;Dr Horsley, CEO of Quantum Brilliance, said the new computer will transform industries in Australia and around the world.&nbsp;"Because of our unique diamond-based technology, customers can run our quantum computers themselves, and we provide them a full set of tools to explore how quantum can help create new capabilities."&nbsp;Pawsey and Quantum Brilliance will join forces with other Australian industry leaders and researchers as part of Pawsey's <a href="https://anu.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=73b3c4bf45063d7aa04d62036&id=cbe395e4b1&e=a3d1be9eda" target="_blank">Quantum Pioneer Program</a> to develop cutting-edge quantum applications in machine learning, logistics, defence, aerospace, quantum finance and quantum research. "I am delighted to see active industry and researcher engagement with quantum computing," Pawsey's Executive Director Mark Stickells said. "We are excited to explore the potential of this technology for Australian researchers to further accelerate their scientific workflows using the potential of quantum computing within the advanced infrastructure of a national research supercomputing centre."

The world's first room-temperature quantum computer is in the final stages of development and is set to be installed at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth and activated later this year.

World's first room-temp quantum computer set for release

In this episode, we discuss an AI algorithm that can streamline the mechanical design process, how quantum keys can thwart hackers, and a new generation of li-ion batteries. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/65c9eedd-bd52-4a23-a02f-5e92faeaca81?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> EPISODE NOTES(0:57) Order Up! AI Finds the Right Material –&nbsp;Researchers from CMU and UCalgary made an AI algorithm to help designers choose the correct material for a part based on its intended end use.(6:15) Unique Testbed In Eindhoven Paves The Way For Unhackable 'Quantum Internet' –&nbsp;Eindhoven researchers have devised a method to protect our data from hackers with quantum computers.(10:51) New Technique Extends Next-Generation Lithium Metal Batteries –&nbsp;A group from Columbia added potassium to lithium ion batteries to make them safer and longer-lasting.&nbsp;--About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

AI for Mechanical Design, the Key to Thwarting Quantum Hackers, Making Better Batteries

Podcast: AI for Mechanical Design, the Key to Thwarting Quantum Hackers, Making Better Batteries

For years, scientists have looked for ways to cool molecules down to ultracold temperatures, at which point the molecules should slow to a crawl, allowing scientists to precisely control their quantum behavior. This could enable researchers to use molecules as complex bits for quantum computing, tuning individual molecules like tiny knobs to carry out multiple streams of calculations at a time.While scientists have super-cooled atoms, doing the same for molecules, which are more complex in their behavior and structure, has proven to be a much bigger challenge.Now MIT physicists have found a way to cool molecules of sodium lithium down to 200 billionths of a Kelvin, just a hair above absolute zero. They did so by applying a technique called collisional cooling, in which they immersed molecules of cold sodium lithium in a cloud of even colder sodium atoms. The ultracold atoms acted as a refrigerant to cool the molecules even further.Collisional cooling is a standard technique used to cool down atoms using other, colder atoms. And for more than a decade, researchers have attempted to supercool a number of different molecules using collisional cooling, only to find that when molecules collided with atoms, they exchanged energy in such a way that the molecules were heated or destroyed in the process, called &ldquo;bad&rdquo; collisions.In their own experiments, the MIT researchers found that if sodium lithium molecules and sodium atoms were made to spin in the same way, they could avoid self-destructing, and instead engaged in &ldquo;good&rdquo; collisions, where the atoms took away the molecules&rsquo; energy, in the form of heat. The team used precise control of magnetic fields and an intricate system of lasers to choreograph the spin and the rotational motion of the molecules. As result, the atom-molecule mixture had a high ratio of good-to-bad collisions and was cooled down from 2 microkelvins to 220 nanokelvins.&ldquo;Collisional cooling has been the workhorse for cooling atoms,&rdquo; adds Nobel Prize laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, the John D. Arthur professor of physics at MIT.&nbsp;&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t convinced that our scheme would work, but since we didn&rsquo;t know for sure, we had to try it. We know now that it works for cooling sodium lithium molecules. Whether it will work for other classes of molecules remains to be seen.&rdquo;Their findings, published today in the journal Nature, mark the first time researchers have successfully used collisional cooling to cool molecules down to nanokelvin temperatures.Ketterle&rsquo;s coauthors on the paper are lead author Hyungmok Son, a graduate student in Harvard University&rsquo;s Department of Physics, along with MIT physics graduate student Juliana Park, and Alan Jamison, a professor of physics at the University of Waterloo and visiting scientist in MIT&rsquo;s Research Laboratory of Electronics.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1586440710384-MIT-Molecular-Fridge-02.jpg">A new refrigerator for molecules. Sodium atoms (yellow spheres) collide with sodium-lithium molecules (combined-yellow-red-spheres). The atom-molecule mixture is trapped in an optical trap whose effective edge is shown as a white rim. As the trap is loosened (depicted as a dimmer rim), the most energetic sodium atoms leave the trap, providing evaporative cooling. The cooling is transferred to the molecules via elastic collisions. The frost on the molecules indicates that they have reached a temperature of 200 billionths of a degree Kelvin. Figure credit: Pilsu Heo at Micropicture (South Korea)<h2>Reaching ultralow temperatures</h2>In the past, scientists found that when they tried to cool molecules down to ultracold temperatures by surrounding them with even colder atoms, the particles collided such that the atoms imparted extra energy or rotation to the molecules, sending them flying out of the trap, or self-destructing all together by chemical reactions.The MIT researchers wondered whether molecules and atoms, having the same spin, could avoid this effect, and remain ultracold and stable as a result. They looked to test their idea with sodium lithium, a &ldquo;diatomic&rdquo; molecule that Ketterle&rsquo;s group experiments with regularly, consisting of one lithium and one sodium atom.&ldquo;Sodium lithium molecules are quite different from other molecules people have tried,&rdquo; Jamison says. &ldquo;Many folks expected those differences would make cooling even less likely to work. However, we had a feeling these differences could be an advantage instead of a detriment.&rdquo;The researchers fine-tuned a system of more than 20 laser beams and various magnetic fields to trap and cool atoms of sodium and lithium in a vacuum chamber, down to about 2 microkelvins &mdash; a temperature Son says is optimal for the atoms to bond together as sodium lithium molecules.Once the researchers were able to produce enough molecules, they shone laser beams of specific frequencies and polarizations to control the quantum state of the molecules and carefully tuned microwave fields to make atoms spin in the same way as the molecules. &nbsp;&ldquo;Then we make the refrigerator colder and colder,&rdquo; says Son, referring to the sodium atoms that surround the cloud of the newly formed molecules. &ldquo;We lower the power of the trapping laser, making the optical trap looser and looser, which brings the temperature of sodium atoms down, and further cools the molecules, to 200 billionths of a kelvin.&rdquo;The group observed that the molecules were able to remain at these ultracold temperatures for up to one second. &ldquo;In our world, a second is very long,&rdquo; Ketterle says. &ldquo;What you want to do with these molecules is quantum computation and exploring new materials, which all can be done in small fractions of a second.&rdquo;If the team can get sodium lithium molecules to be about five times colder than what they have so far achieved, they will have reached a so-called quantum degenerate regime where individual molecules become indistinguishable and their collective behavior is controlled by quantum mechanics. Son and his colleagues have some ideas for how to achieve this, which will involve months of work in optimizing their setup, as well as acquiring a new laser to integrate into their setup.&nbsp;&ldquo;Our work will lead to discussion in our community why collisional cooling has worked for us but not for others,&rdquo; Son says &ldquo;Perhaps we will soon have predictions how other molecules could be cooled in this way.&rdquo;

 A new “refrigerator” super-cools molecules to nanokelvin temperatures. The technique may enable more complex, molecule-based quantum computing.  Image: José-Luis Olivares, MIT

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National Institute of Standards and Technology

Latest Posts

Making quantum computers even more powerful

World's first room-temp quantum computer set for release

Podcast: AI for Mechanical Design, the Key to Thwarting Quantum Hackers, Making Better Batteries

New "refrigerator" super-cools molecules to nanokelvin temperatures