Quantum Computers: Industry Pioneers and Qubit Technologies

Modern electronic chip-based supercomputers appear destined to be outclassed by advances in quantum computing. These machines operate on a subatomic scale and employ rare technology such as cryogenic superconductor chips. The ultimate benefit of quantum computing is that it solves issues that are too complicated for today’s classical computers. Here we present a few notable companies and their qubit technologies: Let’s start with IBM Quantum: IBM Quantum computer uses a physical type of qubit called a superconducting transmon qubit, which is made from superconducting materials such as niobium and aluminum, patterned on a silicon substrate. Such systems are not natural qubits, but are instead formed by isolating two energy levels out of many to form our approximate qubit. Next we have Google Quantum AI on our list: Google Sycamore chip is based on a type of quantum computing called superconducting qubits, which uses electric currents flowing through superconducting materials to store and process information. We continue with Microsoft Azure Quantum: Microsoft’s strategy is different. As a major player in the field, they focus on topological qubits, which involves some innovative and experimental physics. These qubits are based on exotic states of matter called anyons. To make them, you need semiconductor and superconductor materials, electrostatic gates, special particles, nanowires, and a magnetic field. Microsoft is exploring the potential of topological qubits for building more stable and error-resistant quantum computers. Another major player is IonQ which is a company that specializes in trapped ion qubits. Trapped ion qubits use individual ions trapped and manipulated using electromagnetic fields. IonQ’s approach aims to achieve high-fidelity operations and long coherence times, making them suitable for quantum computing applications. IonQ’s qubits are ionized ytterbium atoms, a silvery rare-earth metal. Each ytterbium atom is perfectly identical to every other ytterbium atom in the universe. IonQ Forte, designed with a capacity of up to 32 qubits like IonQ Aria and further expandable in software, represents a major step in that direction. Rigetti systems are powered by superconducting qubit-based quantum processors. As a lithographically defined chip-based technology, superconducting qubits are intrinsically highly scalable. They also offer fast gate times, low-latency conditional logic, and fast program execution times, making them ideally suited to NISQ era applications and the requirements for quantum error correction and fault-tolerant quantum computing. Rigetti Aspen-M-3 is a 80-qubit processor based on scalable multi-chip technology. It features enhanced readout capabilities that contribute to 99.9 % single-qubit gate median fidelity and more than 20-microsecond coherence times. Our final destination is D-Wave Systems. It is a company that focuses on quantum annealing. Their qubits, called flux qubits, are based on superconducting loops. Quantum annealing is a specialized approach to solving optimization problems, and D-Wave’s systems are designed for specific applications in this domain. While makers of gate-based quantum computers struggle to get to 100 qubits, D-Wave has a 5000-qubit system, with 15-way qubit interconnect technology, and is planning a 7000-qubit system. However, quantum annealing and gate-based systems are very different approaches in terms of operation. We have just covered six of the companies involved in quantum computing research, and there are many other research institutions and start-ups contributing to the field. Quantum computing is a rapidly evolving field, and multifaceted ongoing research and development are expected to bring further advancements in qubit technologies. We are following up on the step-by-step improvement of this field, which has a huge potential to change the world, along with artificial intelligence. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe and like if you enjoy the video. Until next time.