{"id":235211,"date":"2026-04-14T22:27:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/reducing-wires-in-quantum-computers"},"modified":"2026-04-14T22:27:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:27:38","slug":"reducing-wires-in-quantum-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/reducing-wires-in-quantum-computers","title":{"rendered":"Reducing Wires in Quantum Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/reducing-wires-in-quantum-computers.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A wire-sharing protocol can minimize the number of wires in a quantum processor without significantly reducing speed, a new theoretical study shows.<\/p>\n<p>As quantum computers continue to grow in size, one of the bottlenecks is the number of control wires that need to be connected to the quantum bits (qubits). A new theoretical study explores so-called time multiplexing, where one wire controls several qubits [<a href=\"https:\/\/physics.aps.org\/articles\/v19\/55#c1\">1<\/a>]. The researchers found that although this strategy requires extra processing time, the delays are less than expected, in part because control signals can be scheduled when certain qubits are busy with computations. The results could spur development of the electronic switches needed for time multiplexing in superconducting quantum computers.<\/p>\n<p>Many state-of-the-art quantum computers consist of 100 or more superconducting qubits that operate inside dilution refrigerators at temperatures near absolute zero. Photos of these devices often show a tall, shiny column filled with dozens and dozens of connected wires\u2014which might be mistaken for the qubits. Instead, these wires carry microwave signals from the room-temperature electronics that control the quantum processors to the micrometer-sized qubits inside the cryogenic refrigerator. The number of control wires can limit increases in the sizes of quantum computers. \u201cYou would like to have one wire going down to each qubit,\u201d says Anton Frisk Kockum from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. \u201cBut that takes up a lot of space and brings heat into the fridge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A wire-sharing protocol can minimize the number of wires in a quantum processor without significantly reducing speed, a new theoretical study shows. As quantum computers continue to grow in size, one of the bottlenecks is the number of control wires that need to be connected to the quantum bits (qubits). A new theoretical study explores [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}