On October 23, 2019, Google took a major step forward in the field as many computers. On that day a team of scientists was led by John Martin published in nature an article in which he explained the method by which he had been employed to achieve the expected amount of control. Broadly speaking, we can refer to this concept as a touchstone when a computer can solve a problem much faster than a classical supercomputer.
Triggered by Martin’s team innumerable discussions about the conditions under which it was done and its real relevance, but it clearly shows that Google is devoting many resources to quantum computers. And Willow, as much as the process of the star in this article, confirms this. There is no quantum foam with superconducting qubits (it has 105); According to Google, this process demonstrates an exponential improvement in the amount of errors that can be made.
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The main problem that is encountered as far as computers in the field of error correction is noise, understood as disturbances that can change the internal state of the qubits and introduce errors in the calculations. This is a strategy that many research groups involved in the development of quantum computers are opting for I monitor things they are carried out by qubits to identify errors in real time and correct them. The problem is that from a practical point of view this plan is very challenging.
Willow, the quantum process that Google just discovered, is reshaping the approach. And, according to its creators, it can exponentially reduce errors as the number of qubits increases. a lot, really There is even more than meets the eye. Until now, as the number of quantum computing problems has increased, it has been much more difficult to contain the noise and interaction between them to correct errors.
Until now, as the number of quantum computing problems has increased, it has been much more difficult to keep the noise and interactions between them under control.
Of course, by the time you read this text, a scientific article will be available in Nature, in which Google researchers explain very well how they have indeed verified the technology that in their Willow quantum processor achieves an exponential reduction. error rate This milestone is known as “below the threshold” and has the greatest importance: a quantum computer will never behave like a classical computer, without losing the advantage that its quantum nature has given it.
In addition, on paper, since Google can increase the number of qubits in its quantum chips, its real-time error correction technology should allow quantum hardware to handle very large problems. This milestone will mark the arrival of fully functional quantum computers. however Willows are signed for the same– Solved the standard Test calculation to evaluate the power of quantitative calculations in less than five minutes. According to Google, one of the most powerful supercomputers available today would take 10 septillion years to perform the same calculation. This figure far exceeds the age of the universe.
The next step is for Google engineers to take a very ambitious decision: they want to carry out the first useful calculation beyond classical computing. This simply means that they have proposed to use their quantum hardware to solve a real-world problem that cannot be addressed with classical supercomputing.
It is clear that to achieve this goal with more qubits they need a lot of processing, but they defend the technology. Willow will be able to make it in the future. I hope it arrives. If so, we will all win because these machines can be used to develop a new drug, design more effective batteries or advance the advent. fusion energyamong many other drugs.
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