A public-private partnership in the Mountain West announced new results today that mark steady progress toward the Department of Energy’s goal of fault-tolerant quantum computing, systems large and reliable enough to solve complex problems.
Sandia National Laboratories, home to the DOE’s longest-running quantum computing program, and tech company Quantinuum published a paper today in Nature reporting the performance of the company’s 98-qubit commercial system, Helios, which debuted last year.
In operations that involved only one or two qubits, or quantum bits, the system demonstrated very high fidelity—99.9975% and 99.921%, respectively. The results establish Helios as the company’s largest and most reliable quantum computer to date.
Necessary for quantum system development is an environment in which the fragile nature of quantum bits (qubits) is stabilized and the thermal noise (fluctuations in current/voltage) inherent in superconducting electronics is dampened. That environment requires cryogenic temperatures, those ranging from 5 to 10 millikelvins, colder than the extreme temperatures encountered in space. Dilution refrigerators create this needed cryogenic condition.
Dilution refrigerators used for quantum R&D need a wiring system that can operate in cryogenic temperatures, maintain a power-efficient direct current, and support high-speed data transmission. Researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory have prototyped flexible, ribbon-like, low-frequency (LF) cables that not only meet these demands, but also are compatible with commercial circuit-board manufacturing processes. Maybell Quantum, a Colorado-based company supplying hardware for developing quantum systems, licensed the design for these cables and is adapting them for use in their dilution refrigerators.
Under carefully controlled conditions, particles within a plasma can strike the surface of a TMD material and knock atoms loose. The challenge is achieving enough energy to remove sulfur atoms from the top layer without harming the molybdenum layer beneath. Because the difference between success and damage is so small, developing a reliable process has proven difficult.
Using computer simulations, researchers found that treating molybdenum disulfide with oxygen or fluorine before plasma exposure can make the process much more controlled. Their findings were published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
Thomas M. Jessel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, explores the human brain, the sophisticated product of 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, assembled during just nine months of embryonic development. The functions encoded by its trillion nerve cells direct all human behavior. Yet the brain is a biological organ made from the same building blocks as skin, liver and lung. How does the brain acquire its remarkable computational power? Answers lie in the details of its construction — the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the formation of thousands of neural circuits, each wired for a specific behavior.
From ultra-flexible materials redefining brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to record-shattering global out-licensing deals, China’s biopharmaceutical sector is undergoing a profound qualitative transformation. ShanghaiEye takes you inside the Yunfan Future Factory and the cross-discipline innovation hub hosted by Chia Tai Tianqing (CTTQ)—a subsidiary of top-50 global pharma giant Sino Biopharmaceutical—to explore the cutting-edge ecosystem driving the future of global healthcare.
We examine a breakthrough BCI technology developed in Shanghai: an ultra-flexible photoresist material for neural electrode arrays. Ye Tianyang, CEO and Co-Founder of Yunfan Future, explains how this material—engineered to be 1,000 times softer than the rigid alternatives utilized by Western counterparts like Elon Musk’s Neuralink—exponentially reduces tissue damage and immune rejection. With dozens of human clinical trials already successfully completed worldwide, this innovation highlights the immense strength of Shanghai’s local talent pool and medical device supply chain.
The feature also spotlights the strategic roadmap of China’s pharmaceutical leaders. Eric Tse, CEO of Sino Biopharmaceutical and Chairman of CTTQ, breaks down their vision to build an open, interdisciplinary incubator. This global nexus bridges experts, scholars, and upstream and downstream partners, transforming Shanghai into a premier launchpad for international innovative drugs. Furthermore, Mr. Tse discusses the \.
Brody is professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His research focuses is on novel quantitative behaviors that allow exploring high-level cognitive questions using powerful emerging tools for studying neural mechanisms in rodents. Brody’s group uses rats to investigate the neural bases of decision making, working memory, and executive control, using a combination of high-throughput semiautomated behavior as well as computational, electrophysiological, pharmacological and optogenetic methods.
Time is something we experience every day, yet scientists still struggle to fully understand what it really is. Now, advances in quantum computing are allowing researchers to explore some of the deepest mysteries of physics—and the results are raising extraordinary questions about the nature of time itself.
By simulating complex quantum systems that were previously impossible to study, quantum computers are helping scientists test theories about causality, time reversal, and the strange behavior of particles at the quantum level. Some findings appear to challenge our most basic assumptions about how time works.
Researchers are investigating whether time is truly fundamental to the universe or whether it emerges from deeper physical processes we have yet to understand. These ideas may sound like science fiction, but they are being explored by some of the world’s leading physicists.
The implications are profound. If our understanding of time is incomplete, it could affect everything from cosmology and black holes to the future of computing and our understanding of reality itself.
In this video, we examine the groundbreaking quantum experiments, the theories they are testing, and why some scientists believe these discoveries could transform our view of the universe.
Watch until the end to uncover the most mind-bending implications of this research. Don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE for more cutting-edge science, quantum mysteries, and incredible discoveries. Comment below: What do you think time really is?
Do multiple versions of ourselves exist in parallel universes living out their lives in different timelines?In this follow up to his bestseller, The Simulation Hypothesis, MIT Computer Scientist and Silicon Valley Game Pioneer Rizwan Virk explores these topics from a new that of simulation theory. If we are living in a digital universe, then many of the complexities and baffling characteristics of our reality start to make more sense. Quantum computing lets us simulate complex phenomena in parallel, allowing the simulation to explore many realities at once to find the most “optimum” path forward. Could this explain not only the enigmatic Mandela Effect but provide us with a new understanding of time and space? Bringing his unique trademark style of combining video games, computer science, quantum physics and computing with lots of philosophy and science fiction, Virk gives us a new way to think about not just our universe, but all possible realities!
Leonard Saalfrank, also known as OMYOG, has showcased a custom C++ coastal renderer created as a one-week rendering challenge, exploring real-time shoreline rendering, shallow-water simulation, and GPU-driven visual effects.
The project builds on his earlier water-rendering work for Ferocious and expands it with shallow-water waves, GPU-driven breaking waves, and particle-based foam supporting up to 300K GPU particles.
Above is a render handling over 6 million triangles across all passes, using 8K textures at 2K resolution, running at around 250 FPS on an RTX 4,090 Laptop GPU with GPU profiling enabled. Without capture and profiling overhead, performance reportedly increases to around 300 FPS.
