The new 12-qubit “Tunnel Falls” chip announced by Intel packs important features into its tiny form factor that could help accelerate research in quantum computing.
Intel has announced a new 12-qubit “silicon spin” chip, Tunnel Falls, and is making it available to the research community. In addition, Intel is collaborating with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland’s Qubit Collaboratory (LQC), to advance quantum computing research.
The process that powers much of life on Earth, photosynthesis, is so finely tuned that just one photon is enough to kick it off.
Scientists have long suspected that photosynthesis must be sensitive to individual photons, or particles of light, because despite the way it dominates our days, the sun’s light is surprisingly sparse at the level of individual plant cells. But only now, with the help of quantum physics, have researchers been able to watch a single packet of light begin the process in an experiment described on June 14 in the journal Nature.
“It makes sense that photosynthesis only requires a single photon, but to actually be able to measure that … is really groundbreaking,” says Sara Massey, a physical chemist at Southwestern University in Texas, who was not involved with the new research. “Being able to actually see that hands-on with the data from these experiments is very valuable.”
A team of physicists, including University of Massachusetts assistant professor Tigran Sedrakyan, recently announced in the journal Nature that they have discovered a new phase of matter. Called the “chiral bose-liquid state,” the discovery opens a new path in the age-old effort to understand the nature of the physical world.
Under everyday conditions, matter can be a solid, liquid, or gas. But once you venture beyond the everyday—into temperatures approaching absolute zero.
Absolute zero is the theoretical lowest temperature on the thermodynamic temperature scale. At this temperature, all atoms of an object are at rest and the object does not emit or absorb energy. The internationally agreed-upon value for this temperature is −273.15 °C (−459.67 °F; 0.00 K).
The compelling feature of this new breed of quasiparticle, says Pedram Roushan of Google Quantum AI, is the combination of their accessibility to quantum logic operations and their relative invulnerability to thermal and environmental noise. This combination, he says, was recognized in the very first proposal of topological quantum computing, in 1997 by the Russian-born physicist Alexei Kitaev.
At the time, Kitaev realized that non-Abelian anyons could run any quantum computer algorithm. And now that two separate groups have created the quasi-particles in the wild, each team is eager to develop their own suite of quantum computational tools around these new quasiparticles.
The concept of a mirror universe has often been studied in theoretical cosmology, and as a new study shows, it might help us solve problems with the cosmological constant.
IBM announced a new breakthrough, published on the cover of the scientific journal Nature, demonstrating for the first time that quantum computers can produce accurate results at a scale of 100+ qubits reaching beyond leading classical approaches.
Blog with more info.
https://research.ibm.com/blog/utility-toward-useful-quantum
A sci fi documentary exploring a timelapse of future space colonization. Travel through 300 years, from 2052 to 2,301 and beyond, and see how modern science fiction becomes reality.
Witness the journey of humans expanding from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond.
Turning space into a second home, and becoming neighbours to the stars.
Other topic include: the development of fusion rocket engines, robot missions to Europa, advanced space colony building technology, a Venus floating city, the advanced Moon colony, advanced Mars colonization, asteroid mining stations, the future of quantum computer technology and building in space, simulations of a black hole, the galaxy, and the Big Bang, bio-engineering for space, advanced Asteroid deflection technology, and looking for life in the Universe.
By using error mitigation, IBM scientists believe they’ve worked around the quantum noise that plagues quantum processors.
A joint research group led by Prof. Sheng Dong and Prof. Lu Zhengtian from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), investigated the coupling effect between neutron spin and gravitational force via employing a high-precision xenon isotope magnetometer. This work was published in Physical Review Letters.
This research aims to uncover the coupling strength between neutron spin and gravity by measuring the weight difference between the neutron’s spin-up and spin-down states. The experimental results revealed that the weight difference between these two states was less than two sextillionths (2×10-21), setting a new upper limit on the coupling strength of this effect.
An article titled “Testing Gravity’s Effect on Quantum Spins,” reported in Physics, highlights this precise measurement research as a novel exploration of the intersection of quantum theory and gravity.
The 12-qubit device will go out to a few academic research labs.
Intel does a lot of things, but it’s mostly noted for making and shipping a lot of processors, many of which have been named after bodies of water. So, saying that the company is set to start sending out a processor called Tunnel Falls would seem unsurprising if it weren’t for some key details. Among them: The processor’s functional units are qubits, and you shouldn’t expect to be able to pick one up on New Egg. Ever.
Tunnel Falls appears to be named after a waterfall near Intel’s Oregon facility, where the company’s quantum research team does much of its work. It’s a 12-qubit chip, which places it well behind the qubit count of many of Intel’s competitors—all of which are making processors available via cloud services. But Jim Clarke, who heads Intel’s quantum efforts, said these differences were due to the company’s distinct approach to developing quantum computers.
