The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Microsoft and PsiQuantum to move to the next phase of its Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program. The program is expected to run through March 2025.
DARPA is excited about the approaches of Microsoft and PsiQuantum, which have emerged as frontrunners in the program. The program’s focus is on developing a fault-tolerant prototype, which is a crucial step towards a utility-scale quantum computer.
DARPA says that the companies have “really exciting approaches” and “something about their approach that nobody else is doing”.
The program aims to design prototype technologies that could demonstrate how underexplored quantum computing approaches can achieve utility-scale operation.
Microsoft and PsiQuantum will move on in DARPA’s Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program. The program is investigating less conventional quantum computing methods can achieve utility-scale operation.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a program to develop a fault-tolerant prototype of a quantum computer. This is a crucial step towards the ultimate goal of a utility-scale quantum computer.
A fault-tolerant prototype is a smaller-scale quantum computer that demonstrates that a utility-scale quantum computer can be constructed as designed and operated as intended. The program’s goal is to develop and defend a system design for a fault-tolerant prototype.
The program’s success could have far-reaching implications for the field of quantum computing, potentially accelerating the development of this technology and its adoption in various industries. The continued exploration of these technologies could lead to significant advancements in quantum computing, providing scientific and industrial utility.
Here are some companies that are working on fault-tolerant quantum computers:
- Microsoft
- PsiQuantum
- Alice & Bob
- Canada
The program’s focus on developing a fault-tolerant prototype is a crucial step towards the ultimate goal of a utility-scale quantum computer. The program’s success could have far-reaching implications for the field of quantum computing, potentially accelerating the development of this technology and its adoption in various industries. The continued exploration of these technologies could lead to significant advancements in quantum computing, providing scientific and industrial utility.
Fault tolerance in quantum computing is the study of how to perform reliable computations using unreliable components. The goal of fault tolerance is to enable reliable quantum computations when the computer’s basic components are unreliable.
Fault-tolerant quantum computing builds on quantum error correction and allows computations to be performed on a quantum system with faulty gates and storage errors.
The threshold theorem (or quantum fault-tolerance theorem) states that a quantum computer with a physical error rate below a certain threshold can suppress the logical error rate to arbitrarily low levels.
Quantum fault-tolerance essentially avoids the uncontrollable cascade of errors caused by the interaction of quantum-bits.
For practical large-scale quantum computing, physicists believe that an error rate of about one in a million is needed. However, today’s error correction technology can only achieve error rates of about one in a thousand.
The Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program is investigating whether less-explored commercial methods can lead to a utility-scale quantum computer. The program is led by DARPA and is expected to run through March 2025.
The US2QC program aims to determine if an underexplored approach to quantum computing can achieve utility-scale operation. This means that the computational value of the computer exceeds its cost.
The US2QC program recently selected Microsoft and PsiQuantum to move to the next phase.
Some challenges to creating a large-scale quantum computer include:
- Quantum decoherence Isolating the system from its environment to prevent interactions with the external world from causing decoherence.
- Error correction Quantum computers are sensitive to noise and prone to errors. Qubits can take an infinite number of states, making quantum errors more difficult to correct than traditional computer errors.
- Scalability Control signal delivery and the integration of one million qubits for fault-tolerant quantum computers.
- Quantum simulation The need for quantum simulation on silicon computers to assess stability metrics.
Quantum error correction (QEC) is a method that can help mitigate errors and improve the reliability and accuracy of quantum computers. QEC involves joining multiple physical qubits into one longer-lived logical qubit.
Quantum computers can solve problems in many fields, including:
- Drug discovery and logistics optimization Quantum computers can search unstructured databases faster than classical computers.
- Molecular structure Quantum computers can create models of how atoms interact, which can lead to a better understanding of molecular structure. This could impact drug and chemical research, and the development of new products and medicines.
- Combinatorics Quantum computers can solve difficult combinatorics problems in graph theory, number theory, and statistics.
- Existential challenges Quantum computers could help solve challenges like climate change and food security.
Other applications of quantum computing include:
- Protein folding
- Fluid simulation
- Credit underwriting
- Financial risk analysis
- Supply chain optimization and forecasting
- Vehicle routing
- Fraud detection
- Fault analysis
- Weather forecasting
However, quantum computers cannot solve undecidable problems like the halting problem
The Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program is a five-year program by DARPA that aims to determine if less-explored commercial approaches can achieve utility-scale operation.
Utility-scale operation means that the computational value of the quantum computer exceeds its cost. The program also aims to keep pace with rival nations by looking at unusual concepts that might achieve utility-scale quantum computing sooner than conventional designs.
The US2QC program also has the following purposes:
- Explore new ways to scale qubit count for larger systems
- Create additional layers of entanglement connectivity for faster performance
- Develop a broader set of quantum error correction algorithms for fault tolerance
(Full article source google)
https://75dfepgs18yveuf760jgccpeuk.hop.clickbank.net
Universe discoveries 