Google plans quantum computer with longer coherence times

IEEE Spectrum has more information about Google’s quantum computer hardware plans.

The Martinis group had previously built quantum computing systems of up to nine qubits based on superconducting quantum circuits—the same type of general hardware design used by D-Wave’s machines. Under the new Google effort, Martinis hopes his team can roughly double the number of qubits every year and eventually work up to 40 or 80 qubits through “brute-force” scaling. “Forty qubits is a large enough number so that you can really tell if the device is going to give any interesting performance,” Martinis says.

Martinis and his team will continue developing error-correction codes for Google with the aim of uncovering and fixing errors in universal logic-gate quantum computers. In May, they demonstrated a type of error-correction code called surface code that can work with lower accuracy thresholds for quantum logic operations.

So about two years to 40 qubits and three years 80 qubits.

Dwave will be commercially releasing their 1152 qubit system this year. The current model processes 512 qubits, but the new hardware will manage 1,152. That may seem like a strange number, but the hardware units can each handle eight qubits and the system stacks them in a 12 by 12 grid. [8 *144 = 1152]

They should have a 2300 qubit system next year. Dwave Systems is still improving their qubits and hardware systems.

D-Wave currently has 25 people on staff focused on software development, and plans to double the size of this team by the end of the year.

Dwave received another $30 million in funding this year.

Earlier this year, D-Wave announced partnerships with companies DNA-SEQ and 1QBit, which are using D-Wave’s quantum technology to develop targeted drug therapies and optimized financial modeling, respectively. Already, D-Wave’s system is supporting the development of critical, real-world applications. As D-Wave expands the availability of quantum computing technology through the cloud, the potential of the technology is increasingly accessible to innovators in all fields.

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