A new level of technology

The dream of quantum computing has always been fascinating: What if we could build a machine that operated at the quantum level and performed complex calculations exponentially faster than a computer constrained by classical physics? But while IBM, Google, and other companies have announced hardware for iterative quantum computing, this hardware is still not being used for any practical purpose.

This may change soon, as Microsoft and Quantinuum claim to be developing it. The most error-free system of quantum computing.

While classical computers and electronic devices rely on binary bits as the basic unit of information (they can be on or off), quantum computers work with qubits that can exist in a superposition of two states simultaneously. The problem with qubits is that they are prone to errors; This is the main reason why modern quantum machines are used only for research and experimentation purposes.

Microsoft’s solution was to group physical qubits into virtual qubits; this allowed diagnostics and error correction to be applied without damaging them, and ran it all on the Quantinuum hardware.

Schematic representation of the operation of a quantum computer: video

This achievement could eventually bring us closer to a new level of quantum computing. Eventually they may become reliable enough for practical use.

The challenge facing the entire quantum ecosystem is to increase the accuracy of qubits and make quantum computing fault-tolerant so that we can use a quantum machine to solve previously difficult-to-solve problems. In short, we need to move to robust logic qubits, created by combining multiple physical qubits into logic qubits, to protect against noise and support long-lived, stable computations.
– says Jason Zander, Microsoft’s vice president of strategic missions and technologies.

Researchers will be able to experience Microsoft’s quantum computing technology through Azure Quantum Elements over the next few months, and it will be available as a special preview. The goal is to advance further to Level 3 quantum supercomputers that could theoretically solve incredibly complex problems such as climate change and rare drug research.

It is unknown how long it will take to reach this level, but for now we are at least one step closer to practical quantum computing. A large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer is still a long way off.