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A new quantum computer has broken a world record in "quantum supremacy," topping the performance of benchmarking set by Google's Sycamore machine by 100-fold.

Using the new 56-qubit H2-1 computer, scientists at quantum computing company Quantinuum ran various experiments to benchmark the machine's performance levels and the quality of the qubits used. They published their results June 4 in a study uploaded to the preprint database arXiv. The study has not been peer-reviewed yet.

To demonstrate the potential of the quantum computer, the scientists at Quantinuum used a well-known algorithm to measure how noisy, or error-prone, qubits were.

Quantum computers can perform calculations in parallel thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics and entanglement between qubits, meaning the fates of different qubits can instantly change each other. Classical computers, by contrast, can work only in sequence.

Adding more qubits to a system also scales up the power of a machine exponentially; scientists predict that quantum computers will one day perform complex calculations in seconds that a classical supercomputer would have taken thousands of years to solve.

The point where quantum computers overtake classical ones is known as "quantum supremacy," but achieving this milestone in a practical way would need a quantum computer with millions of qubits. The largest machine today has only about 1,000 qubits.

Related: Quantum computing breakthrough could happen with just hundreds, not millions, of qubits using new error-correction system

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The reason we would need so many qubits for "quantum supremacy" is that they are inherently prone to error, so many would be needed to correct those errors. That's why many researchers are now focusing on building more reliable qubits, rather than simply adding more qubits to machines.

The team tested the fidelity of H2-1's output using what's known as the linear cross entropy benchmark (XEB). XEB spits out results between 0 (none of the output is error-free) and 1 (completely error-free), Quantinuum representatives said in a statement.

Scientists at Google first tested the company's Sycamore quantum computer using XEB in 2019, demonstrating that it could complete a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken the most powerful supercomputer at the time 10,000 years to finish. They registered an XEB result of approximately 0.002 with the 53 superconducting qubits built into Sycamore.

But in the new study, Quantinuum scientists in partnership with JPMorgan, Caltech and Argonne National Laboratory achieved an XEB score of approximately 0.35. This means the H2 quantum computer can produce results without producing an error 35% of the time.

"We are entirely focused on the path to universal fault tolerant quantum computers," Ilyas Khan, chief product officer at Quantinuum and founder of Cambridge Quantum Computing, said in the statement. "This objective has not changed, but what has changed in the past few months is clear evidence of the advances that have been made possible due to the work and the investment that has been made over many, many years."

Quantinuum previously collaborated with Microsoft to demonstrate "logical qubits" that had an error rate 800 times lower than physical qubits.

In the study, published in April, scientists demonstrated they could run experiments with the logical qubits with an error rate of just 1 in 100,000 which is much stronger than the 1-in-100 error rate of physical qubits, Microsoft representatives said.

"These results show that whilst the full benefits of fault tolerant quantum computers have not changed in nature, they may be reachable earlier than was originally expected," added Khan.

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New quantum computer smashes 'quantum supremacy' record by a factor of 100 and it consumes 30,000 times less power - Livescience.com

Enlarge / A single logical qubit is built from a large collection of hardware qubits.

One of the more striking things about quantum computing is that the field, despite not having proven itself especially useful, has already spawned a collection of startups that are focused on building something other than qubits. It might be easy to dismiss this as opportunismtrying to cash in on the hype surrounding quantum computing. But it can be useful to look at the things these startups are targeting, because they can be an indication of hard problems in quantum computing that haven't yet been solved by any one of the big companies involved in that spacecompanies like Amazon, Google, IBM, or Intel.

In the case of a UK-based company called Riverlane, the unsolved piece that is being addressed is the huge amount of classical computations that are going to be necessary to make the quantum hardware work. Specifically, it's targeting the huge amount of data processing that will be needed for a key part of quantum error correction: recognizing when an error has occurred.

All qubits are fragile, tending to lose their state during operations, or simply over time. No matter what the technologycold atoms, superconducting transmons, whateverthese error rates put a hard limit on the amount of computation that can be done before an error is inevitable. That rules out doing almost every useful computation operating directly on existing hardware qubits.

The generally accepted solution to this is to work with what are called logical qubits. These involve linking multiple hardware qubits together and spreading the quantum information among them. Additional hardware qubits are linked in so that they can be measured to monitor errors affecting the data, allowing them to be corrected. It can take dozens of hardware qubits to make a single logical qubit, meaning even the largest existing systems can only support about 50 robust logical qubits.

Riverlane's founder and CEO, Steve Brierley, told Ars that error correction doesn't only stress the qubit hardware; it stresses the classical portion of the system as well. Each of the measurements of the qubits used for monitoring the system needs to be processed to detect and interpret any errors. We'll need roughly 100 logical qubits to do some of the simplest interesting calculations, meaning monitoring thousands of hardware qubits. Doing more sophisticated calculations may mean thousands of logical qubits.

That error-correction data (termed syndrome data in the field) needs to be read between each operation, which makes for a lot of data. "At scale, we're talking a hundred terabytes per second," said Brierley. "At a million physical qubits, we'll be processing about a hundred terabytes per second, which is Netflix global streaming."

It also has to be processed in real time, otherwise computations will get held up waiting for error correction to happen. To avoid that, errors must be detected in real time. For transmon-based qubits, syndrome data is generated roughly every microsecond, so real time means completing the processing of the datapossibly Terabytes of itwith a frequency of around a Megahertz. And Riverlane was founded to provide hardware that's capable of handling it.

The system the company has developed is described in a paper that it has posted on the arXiv. It's designed to handle syndrome data after other hardware has already converted the analog signals into digital form. This allows Riverlane's hardware to sit outside any low-temperature hardware that's needed for some forms of physical qubits.

That data is run through an algorithm the paper terms a "Collision Clustering decoder," which handles the error detection. To demonstrate its effectiveness, they implement it based on a typical Field Programmable Gate Array from Xilinx, where it occupies only about 5 percent of the chip but can handle a logical qubit built from nearly 900 hardware qubits (simulated, in this case).

The company also demonstrated a custom chip that handled an even larger logical qubit, while only occupying a tiny fraction of a square millimeter and consuming just 8 milliwatts of power.

Both of these versions are highly specialized; they simply feed the error information for other parts of the system to act on. So, it is a highly focused solution. But it's also quite flexible in that it works with various error-correction codes. Critically, it also integrates with systems designed to control a qubit based on very different physics, including cold atoms, trapped ions, and transmons.

"I think early on it was a bit of a puzzle," Brierley said. "You've got all these different types of physics; how are we going to do this?" It turned out not to be a major challenge. "One of our engineers was in Oxford working with the superconducting qubits, and in the afternoon he was working with the ion trap qubits. He came back to Cambridge and he was all excited. He was like, 'They're using the same control electronics.'" It turns out that, regardless of the physics involved in controlling the qubits, everybody had borrowed the same hardware from a different field (Brierley said it was a Xilinx radiofrequency system-on-a-chip built for 5G base stationed prototyping.) That makes it relatively easy to integrate Riverlane's custom hardware with a variety of systems.

See the rest here:
Why every quantum computer will need a powerful classical computer - Ars Technica

LONDON and BROOMFIELD, Colo., July 11, 2024 Quantinuum has signed a Joint Statement of Endeavor with the STFC Hartree Centre, one of Europes largest supercomputing centers dedicated to industry engagement. The partnership will provide UK industrial and scientific users access to Quantinuums H-Series, the worlds highest-performing trapped-ion quantum computers, via the cloud and on-premise.

Research and scientific discovery are central to our culture at Quantinuum, and we are proud to support the pioneers at the Hartree Centre, said Raj Hazra, CEO of Quantinuum. As we accelerate quantum computing, the Hartree Centre and the UK quantum ecosystem will be on the forefront of building solutions powered by quantum computers at scale.

Both organizations aim to support UK businesses and research organizations in exploring quantum advantage in quantum chemistry, computational biology, quantum artificial intelligence and quantum-augmented cybersecurity. The UK has a strong global reputation in each domain, and quantum computing is expected to accelerate development in the coming years.

Quantinuums H-Series hardware will benefit scientists across various areas of research, including exascale computing algorithms, fusion energy development, climate resilience and more, said Kate Royse, Director of the STFC Hartree Centre. This partnership also furthers our five-year plan to unlock the high growth potential of advanced digital technologies for UK industry.

The Hartree Centre is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) within UK Research and Innovation building on a wealth of established scientific heritage and a network of international expertise. The centers experts collaborate with industry and the research community to explore the latest technologies, upskill teams and apply practical digital solutions across supercomputing, data science and AI.

Quantinuums H-Series quantum computers are the highest-performing in the world, having consistently held the world record for quantum volume, a widely used benchmark for quantum computing performance, for over three years and currently standing at 220.

In April 2024, Quantinuum and Microsoft reported a breakthrough demonstration of four reliable logical qubits using quantum error correction an important technology necessary for practical quantum computing. During the same month, Quantinuum extended its industry leadership with its H-Series computer becoming the first to achieve three 9s 99.9% two-qubit gate fidelity across all qubit pairs in a production device, a critical milestone that enables fault-tolerant quantum computing.

This achievement was immediately available to Quantinuum customers, who depend on using the very best quantum hardware and software, enabling them to push the boundaries on new solutions in areas such as materials development, drug discovery, machine learning, cybersecurity, and financial services.

Quantinuum formerly known as Cambridge Quantum prior to its 2021 combination with Honeywell Quantum Solutions was one of the UK governments delivery partners, following the 2014 launch of the National Quantum Technologies Programme. Cambridge Quantum ran the Quantum Readiness Programme for several years to inspire UK business and industry to invest in quantum computing to explore the potential use cases of this revolutionary technology.

Earlier this year, Quantinuum was selected as a winner in the 15m SBRI Quantum Catalyst Fund, to support the UK Government in delivering the benefits of quantum technologies, with an initial focus on simulating actinide chemistry using quantum computers.

About Quantinuum

Quantinuum, the worlds largest integrated quantum company, pioneers powerful quantum computers and advanced software solutions. Quantinuums technology drives breakthroughs in materials discovery, cybersecurity, and next-gen quantum AI. With over 500 employees, including 370+ scientists and engineers, Quantinuum leads the quantum computing revolution across continents.

About The STFC Hartree Centre

The Hartree Centre helps UK businesses and organizations of any size to explore and adopt supercomputing, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for enhanced productivity, smarter innovation and economic growth. Backed by significant UK government funding and strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as the University of Liverpool, the Hartree Centre is home to some of the most advanced digital technologies and experts in the UK. In 2021, the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI) program was established to provide a safe and supportive environment for UK businesses and public sector organizations to acquire the skills needed to adopt AI, develop proofs-of-concept and de-risk investment into emerging digital technologies such as quantum computing. The Hartree Centre is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Source: Quantinuum

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Quantinuum and STFC Hartree Centre Partner to Advance Quantum Research in the UK - HPCwire