A European consortium was launched with the goal of scaling silicon quantum technologies. This will be a four-year 15 million euro projecte named QLSI (Quantum Large-Scale Integration with Silicon). It will be coordinated by CEA-Leti and will lay the foundation for the EU’s industrial-scale implementation of semiconductor quantum processors and position Europe as a global leader in quantum computing. The project will focus on demonstrating that spin qubits are the leading platform for scaling to very large numbers of quantum bits, or qubits, the building blocks of quantum information processing.
QLSI will pursue four essential results:
* Fabrication and operation of 16-qubit quantum processors based on industry-compatible semiconductor technology
* Demonstration of high-fidelity (over 99 percent) single- and two-qubit gates, read-out and initialization with these devices in a lab environment
* Demonstration of a quantum computer prototype, with online open-access for the community, integrating such a high-quality quantum processor in a semi-industrial environment (up to eight qubits available online), and
* Documentation of the requirements to address important issue of scalability towards large systems over 1,000 qubits.
The project is a recent addition to the EU’s ambitious Quantum Flagship program, a 10-year, €1 billion ($1.18 billion) R&D initiative launched in 2018.
Nextbigfuture notes that Europe has nice scientific research goals but is starting behind US quantum computing research efforts. The US has already had many 50+ qubit machines in operation for a couple of years. Taking four years to document the issues toward scaling to over 1000 qubits is less ambitious than actually making over 1000 qubit quantum computers. Nextbigfuture thinks Europe is again late and playing catchup and having the goal of not catching up for four years.
SOURCES- CEA Leti, Brian Wang analysis last paragraph
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
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The thing with this and related computational technology from various AI research to quantum to simple classical semiC tech to raw processor speed/ quantity projects to networked computing, etc., is the Who and what that means for access to society in general. From small companies and university spin-offs to large university programs to consortiums of academic institutions to large established companies to open government programs to secret government programs. The type of systems that will be made available commercially, to restricted systems, to systems entirely in-house and never released (in modern form) will influence which countries, government programs, industries, and individuals prosper. Military and domestic policy AI/ high-computation systems that are reserved for modelling, for example, nuclear blasts and miltary contingencies — may never make it to climate modelling, pharmacology, astronomy-based calculations, commercial energy modelling, even the amazon-scale traveling salesman theorem, etc. A Great society may be 10 – 20 years behind what it could be due to lack of access/ security, etc. Wiki has a lot of these projects' current status and the main players, but…