ColdQuanta, the leader in Cold Atom Quantum Technology, has achieved a significant milestone in the development of its Quantum Computer by trapping and addressing 100 qubits in a large, dense 2-D cold atom array. On track to be available later this year, the digital gate-based quantum computer (code named “Hilbert”) will be among the most powerful in the world using pristine qubits that have the stability of atomic clocks to massively scale qubit count beyond what is possible with other quantum computing approaches.
Nextbigfuture interviewed the Coldquanta CEO in March 2021.
Nextbigfuture interviewed Tom Noel, ColdQuanta’s Director of Quantum Computing and Interim CEO Dan Caruso. ColdQuanta is using neutral atoms instead of trapped ions as the basis for its quantum computers.
ColdQuanta is building a functional first system now and believes they will be able to scale to the 1000s of qubits faster than competing approaches. If usable quantum systems are created with high entanglement times and thousands of qubits then there will be massive advances with optimization problems, machine learning, materials research and chemistry simulation applications. Cracking major optimization problems could improve the efficiency of large-scale logistics at the scale of Fedex and the US military. Advances with chemistry will be beneficial for many industries including drugs and agriculture. The economic impacts would scale into the trillions.
There are three major reasons the neutral atom approach should become dominant:
1. Ion qubits used in ion-trapping are positively charged.
2. High Connections
3. Entanglement. Trapped ion and neutral atoms approaches have far higher entanglement times. The superconducting approaches have severely limited entanglement times.
Research suggests the intrinsic scalability of neutral atom quantum processors could reach the 1,000 qubit range and introduce prospects for universal fault-tolerant quantum computing and applications beyond quantum computing.
The successful achievement of 100 qubit array milestone demonstrates the potential for the ColdQuanta platform to rapidly scale towards solving real world problems with commercial impact. The scalability of Hilbert will enable ColdQuanta to solve important customer computation problems more rapidly and with greater efficiency in environments where optimization is critical such as financial services, logistics and pharmaceuticals (drug discovery), as well as the mainstream delivery of quantum computing as a cloud service (QCaaS). During testing, these qubit counts and connectivity scaled extremely well wherein large, dense 2-D arrays of qubits were trapped and manipulated with lasers.
“Today’s continued progress represents the completion of a critical step in bringing our Cold Atom Quantum Technology to market and showcasing its potential to support a variety of practical use cases,” said Paul Lipman, President of Quantum Computing at ColdQuanta. “Our Cold Atom Method stands out among other modalities by demonstrating the potential for unmatched qubit scalability. We are on the brink of delivering a compelling platform and on the doorstep of commercialization.”
Hilbert is based on pioneering work over the last several decades by Mark Saffman, ColdQuanta’s Chief Scientist for Quantum Information and professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Cold Atoms are nature’s qubits. Their pristine characteristics enable control of their quantum state with a clear pathway to rapidly scaling to multiple thousands of qubits,” said Mark Saffman.
This latest milestone adds to a number of advancements the company has achieved since the beginning of 2021, including several key leadership appointments with the addition of Paul Lipman as President of Quantum Computing, Rushton McGarr as Chief Financial Officer and Dan Caruso as Interim Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman. This year, ColdQuanta has also been awarded multi millions of dollars in U.S. government contracts and announced participation in the High-BIAS2 (High Bandwidth Inertial Atom Source) project wherein ColdQuanta’s Cold Atom Quantum Technology serves as the foundation for the project’s gyroscope and Quantum Positioning System (QPS).
SOURCES -Coldquanta
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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Wow, looking at that optical table, the photographer must have said, "That table's looking too sparse, can you throw some sciency looking stuff on it?"
I mean, most of those optical components aren't even lined up with anything!
What temperature does it work at?