Quantum computers ready to leap out of the lab in 2017

Re:Quantum computers ready to leap out of the lab in 2017 by mtgx on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @08:12AM (#13317938)

I wonder if anyone is pursuing Andrea Morello [1] and his team's silicon-based quantum chip idea, which they've also said has much better stability than superconducting qubits:

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/quantum-compu...

I'd much rather ultimately see silicon-based quantum computers, which may eventually become advanced (streamlined) enough to be used by mainstream users, too. Quantum computers using superconductors and liquid nitrogen will never become mainstream. They would just be used by corporations and governments.

So I hope there will be more investing in silicon-based quantum computing research sooner rather than later. Or if not silicon, at least another material that could one day become as cheap and practical.

EDIT: As for who will be the "first" with a practical quantum computer, it does seem like Google will be the one to release a 50-qubit computer this year or the next [2]. There are like 10 other companies that have built 5-qubit quantum computers, but that was still mainly a science experiment to prove that a quantum computer can be made at all.

A 50-qubit quantum computer would establish a new threshold and according to Martinis [3], at least, it should be easier to scale from that point forward. In other words, the "quantum era" may actually begin then. I imagine those "stuck" at 5-qubits still have a long way to go before they can scale quickly beyond that.

[1] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/new-spin-on...

[2] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602283/googles-quantum-dr...

[3] https://www.wired.com/2014/09/martinis/

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Re:Quantum computers ready to leap out of the lab in 2017 by gji on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @11:11PM (#13324669)

Andrea Morello's devices are essentially quantum dots - isolated electrons that behave like they are bound to a single atom. Unfortunately, almost all quantum dots require dilution refrigerators. These things are past liquid nitrogen and even liquid helium - they use interesting phase change properties of a mix of helium-3 and helium-4 to lower the temperature to hundreds of millikelvin.

Really the only game in town currently for room-temperature quantum computing are impurity centers in diamond (most commonly nitrogen-vacancy centers). Unfortunately, there are still many difficulties there, especially since nanofabrication of diamond and precise implantation of the impurities is still a new field.

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Re:Quantum computers ready to leap out of the lab in 2017 by marcosdumay on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @10:00AM (#13318742)

Is his machine adiabatic? Because calling it D-Wave 2, and only talking about "quantum supremacy" instead of the well defined "adiabatic" make it too suspicious.

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