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Quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are two of the most exciting and cutting-edge fields in science and technology today. But what happens when they meet? How will they transform our world and our lives? As an enthusiast of quantum computing and artificial intelligence, I have been pondering these questions.

Quantum computing, the hardware, is based on the principles of quantum mechanics, which describe the behaviour of subatomic particles. Unlike classical computers, which use bits that can only be in one of two states (0 or 1), quantum computers use qubits that can be in a superposition of both states at the same time. This allows them to perform multiple calculations simultaneously and solve problems intractable for conventional computers.

Artificial intelligence, the software, is the branch of computer science that aims to create systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning, decision-making, and natural language processing. AI has made tremendous progress in recent years, thanks to advances in algorithms, data, and hardware. AI applications are now ubiquitous in our society, from personal assistants to self-driving cars to facial recognition.

The convergence of these two domains could lead to unprecedented breakthroughs. A particularly intriguing possibility is the advent of superintelligence, which refers to an agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. Quantum machine learning, a fusion of quantum computing and AI, could potentially accelerate the learning process of AI systems, allowing them to assimilate and process information at a rate far beyond whats possible today. This could be the key to unlocking superintelligence.

In practical terms, quantum machine learning could enable faster and more accurate analysis of large and complex datasets, such as genomic or social media data. Another fascinating area where superintelligence could make a substantial difference is climate modelling. Accurate climate prediction requires the analysis of vast amounts of data and the modelling of complex systems, tasks that are computationally demanding for classical computers. But super-intelligent quantum computers could significantly improve the accuracy and timeliness of climate models.

Quantum optimisation, aided by superintelligence, could help find optimal solutions for complex problems, such as logistics, scheduling, or drug discovery. Traditionally, discovering and developing new drugs is a long and expensive process. Scientists must synthesise thousands of compounds and test them on biological targets to see if they have the desired effect. However, with quantum AI superintelligence, we could simulate the interactions of molecules at a quantum level, accelerating the drug discovery process and reducing its cost.

Yet, many challenges and risks are associated with the pursuit of superintelligence through quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Quantum computers are still very difficult to build and operate, and require extremely low temperatures and high precision to function properly. They are also prone to errors and noise, which can affect their performance and reliability.

Moreover, the potential for superintelligence also comes with significant ethical and social issues. As these systems would surpass human intelligence, ensuring they act in alignment with human values and interests becomes paramount and presents a huge ethical challenge.

These two fields will revolutionise our world but also require careful consideration and regulation. As we navigate the path forward, we must foster an open dialogue between scientists, policymakers, ethicists, and the public, to ensure that the benefits of quantum AI and superintelligence are maximised and its risks are minimised. To avoid becoming irrelevant, we must invest in education and training to prepare our workforce for the quantum future. Only then can we truly harness the power of quantum AI to transform our world for the better.

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Quantum Computing Meets AI: Harnessing Their Convergence for a ... - Medium

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Quantum computers are getting closer to becoming practical devices, and experts say they could revolutionize fields such as drug discovery, materials science, and life sciences.

Quantinuum has released what it claims is the highest-performing quantum computer yet built, called System Model H2. The computer is less prone to errors than earlier models.

"This is a huge step for practical quantum computing," Tony Uttley, the president of Quantinuum, told Lifewire in an email interview. "One thing our announcement highlights is that our quantum computer can do things that classical computers cannot. Specifically, because our quantum computer can take advantage of intrinsically quantum features like superposition and entanglement, it is now a tool that condensed matter physicists and high energy physicists can use to conduct experiments that have up until now only been theoretical."

A quantum computer uses the principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations that are impossible or very hard for classical computers. These machines operate with qubits, which are like bits but can simultaneously be in a superposition of 0 and 1. This feat allows a quantum computer to explore many possible solutions simultaneously and find the optimal one faster.

Quantum computers could have vast implications for advances in many areas. By solving computational problems that are impossible for classical computers, quantum computers will enable breakthroughs in modeling and controlling nature, Paul Lipman, Chief Commercial Officer at the quantum computing company Infleqtion said in an email.

"There will always be a place for 'ordinary' computers," Lipman added. "Quantum computers won't give us faster video games or better spreadsheets. However, quantum computers will ultimately have a profound impact on many aspects of our livesfrom creating targeted medical therapies to developing more environmentally friendly and efficient techniques for developing fertilizers, more energy-efficient batteries, and much else."

One stumbling block for quantum computers is that they are prone to errors due to the delicate nature of their qubits. Researchers are working on quantum error correction to protect information by encoding it across multiple physical qubits to form a 'logical qubit.'

Practical quantum computers "will require thousands of error-corrected logical qubitseach of which will require anywhere from dozens to hundreds of physical qubits," Lipman said. "Significant advances are needed in all areas of the quantum computing field to achieve this goal."

Quantum computers won't give us faster video games or better spreadsheets.

But researchers are making progress toward practical quantum computing. One exciting recent advance is optical quantum bit manipulation, Hamid Pishdadian, the CEO of SQE Holdings, a digital platform that uses quantum security, said via email.

"Up until now, quantum computing has required cryogenic freezing to keep the technology running smoothly," he added. "Optical quantum bit manipulation allows them to run at room temperature, which could lead to far more widespread availability."

Quantum computers are already being inserted into many people's lives, often in places that they may not know, Uttley said. For example, Quantinuum uses its H-Series quantum computers to generate quantum-computing-hardened encryption keys.

"These encryption keys are used by companies and organizations around the world to offer the world's best protection for critical data," he added.

Bartlomiej Wroblewski / Getty Images

Billions of dollars are invested in quantum computing by governments, institutions, and investment firms worldwide, Lipman noted. IBM recently released a 433-qubit quantum computer (the largest in the world). Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have demonstrated trapping over 1,200 atoms in an array that will lead to large-scale quantum computers utilizing individual atoms as qubits.

"Advanced quantum clocks are on the cusp of commercialization," he added. "These quantum-enabled devices will enable revolutions in fields as diverse as telecommunications, navigation, database efficiency, earthquake prediction, financial trading networks, cybersecurity, and energy grid resilience."

While many companies are experimenting with quantum computing today, practical applications beyond 'proof of concept' projects are probably 2-3 years away, Yuval Boger, the Chief Marketing Officer at the quantum computing company Classiq said in an email interview.

"In the foreseeable future, quantum computers will be a 'back-end' infrastructure technology," he added. "Just like transatlantic fiber links or ultra-large storage farms, quantum computing will impact the way companies do business, but are unlikely to become an edge device for ordinary computer users."

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Quantum Computers Are Getting a BoostHere's What That Could ... - Lifewire

IBM

Quantum computing represents a loomingand inevitablethreat to almost every aspect of our digital world that is protected by current forms of encryption. Either within this decade or the next, quantum computers will become powerful enough to easily overwhelm todays state-of-the-art cryptography. Our most popular encryption algorithms are based on mathematics impossible for supercomputers to solve but pose no meaningful challenge for the advanced technology of future quantum computers.

Even though we dont know exactly when it will be possible for quantum computing to crack classical encryption, the fact that it will happen is beyond doubt. Quantum machines of the future will have the potential to break encryption algorithms that protect online transactions, financial data, and even national security and government communications.

There is only one way to avoid these potential financial disruptions every existing security algorithm must be remediated with quantum-resistant encryption.

IBM has been working on Quantum Safe technology to solve this problem for several years. Before we examine IBM's solution, we need to understand how we got here.

The current states of quantum computing and traditional cryptography

From a development standpoint, today's quantum computers are late-stage prototypes equipped with 30 to 1,000 qubits that use various hardware technologies for qubits such as supercomputing, trapped ions, neutral atoms and even particles of light.

Fault-tolerant quantum computers of the future equipped with millions of qubits are expected to improve our lives by solving problems such as assist with climate change, simulation of large molecules and the creation of new materials and drugs. However, that class of quantum computers also represents a significant threat to cryptography and the financial underpinnings of companies, society and government.

In 1994, Bell Labs mathematician Peter Shor ignited a storm of interest in quantum computing when he developed an algorithm that could theoretically factor large prime numbers. When he published his paper on whats now called Shor's algorithm, there were no quantum computers to run it. Fast forward to today, there are quantum computers, but none yet powerful enough to run Peter Shors algorithm at least, not yet.

RSA encryption is one of the most common forms of asymmetric cryptography. It is susceptible to being hacked using the Shor algorithm because it uses two large prime numbers that are multiplied together to create a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt data, while the private key is used to decrypt it. The public key can be shared with everyone, while the private key is kept secret.

How much quantum computing power is needed to break encryption?

It is generally accepted by scientists that a classical supercomputer would require millions of years to crack a 2,048-bit RSA key. A long time, yes, but the number of possible combinations of prime numbers that could be used to create such a key is so vast that it would be impossible to test them in less than a few million years.

However, the same feat will be possible with an advanced quantum computer within a few hours to a few days and therein lies the problem. While classical supercomputers pose no risk to current cryptography and encryption, quantum computers will have no problem penetrating existing cryptography schemes.

One study theorized that someone would need a 20-million-qubit fault-tolerant quantum computer to break RSA-2,048 encryption in 8 hours.

RSA could also be broken with fewer qubits, but it would take longer. Fujitsu researchers estimated that a fault-tolerant quantum computer equipped with 10,000 logical qubits (a logical qubit contains multiple physical qubits) and 2.23 trillion quantum gates could also crack RSA. It wouldn't be a fast processit would take 104 daysbut it would be feasible.

Lets put those millions of qubits in perspective.

This year, IBM's quantum roadmap calls for the release of its largest gate-based quantum computer processors to date, one that uses 1,100 qubits.

Despite the limited size of our present-day quantum computers, most experts have little doubt that the technology will eventually develop the power needed to break RSA encryption within an actionable amount of time.

When will it be possible to break encryption?

But how long is eventually? There is no way to say precisely when quantum computers will be able to break current cryptographic algorithms. That said, whenever it does happen, it won't be a surprise. The capability will evolve along a sequential timeline of well-defined improvements in quantum computing power.

Besides the scale and fault-tolerance mentioned above, the cryptography-defeating quantum machine of the future will also likely employ a quantum-centric supercomputer architecture.

There have been predictions about when encryption-hacking might occur by a few expert sources:

These estimates were made several years ago. Even though a great deal of progress in quantum computing has been made since then, fault tolerance remains a significant technical challenge that may require another five or more years before it is achieved. Error mitigation will provide a partial solution, but not enough to scale quantum machines to the level needed to run a robust version of Shor's algorithm that can break RSA encryption and reveal its public and private keys.

Which types of systems are at risk?

IBM

We live in a world where almost every digital asset is protected by some type of encryption, ranging from private email accounts to subscription services to online bank and stock trading accounts to critical infrastructure systems such as the national electrical grid and municipal water systems.

It is a simple equivalence. Todays traditional encryption cannot coexist within an environment of advanced quantum computing because none of the protected systems will be secure.

Here are a few ways in which bad actors that could ranging from large state-sponsored groups to rogue criminal organizations, could damage or even cause a complete collapse of our entire financial system:

These are only a few examples of how quantum computing could be used to cause financial havoc within individual lives, companies, society, the government, or the world as a whole. The actual impact of quantum computing on economic systems is hard to predict, but such actions would clearly have a significant effect.

Many disruptions, such as those involving systems like power grids or airline traffic routing, would not remain isolated; these events would likely have significant ripple effects throughout the world economy and for an extended period. It has been estimated that losses caused by encryption intrusions could reach as much as several trillion dollars each.

The World Economic Forum recently estimated that more than 20 billion digital devices will need to be either upgraded or replaced in the next 1020 years to include new forms of quantum-safe encrypted communication.

IBM Quantum Safe Technology work has already begun

In November 2022, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum ordering all federal agencies to start preparing to implement post-quantum cryptography to secure Federal data and information systems. This memo is a follow-up to a White House National Security Memorandum issued in May 2022 that made federal resources available to assist in migrating all U.S. digital systems to quantum-resilient cybersecurity standards by 2035.

Previously, NIST initiated a Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process in 2016 to identify new algorithms that can resist threats posed by quantum computers. After three rounds of evaluation, NIST has identified new quantum-safe algorithms; it plans to have new quantum-safe standards in place by 2024.

The four algorithm finalists from NIST

IBM

In NISTs final round of consideration, IBM researchers were involved in developing three quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms based on lattice cryptography: CRYSTALS-Kyber, CRYSTALS-Dilithium and Falcon.

Industries have already begun to prepare for the quantum future as well. Last year the telecommunications industry organization GSMA formed a Post-Quantum Telco Network Taskforce. IBM and Vodafone were among the founding members of the taskforce to help define policy, regulation and operator business processes to protect telcos from the quantum threat.

What must be done to protect cryptography from quantum threats

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there is only one way to protect the billions of encrypted products and services from damage that future quantum computers could cause. According to the best estimates, quantum computer threats to existing encrypted services and products will begin to happen around 2030. That means we only have six to seven years for every organization and every government agency to replace its existing public-key cryptography applications with new NIST quantum-safe algorithms.

As announced at IBMs Think 2023 conference, IBM researchers and the companys partners have been actively developing quantum-safe remediation techniques and algorithms for that exact purpose. The objective is to allow an unhampered flow-through of future quantum computing power and benefits while simultaneously providing a shield again quantums disruptive encryption-breaking power.

IBM Quantum Safe

IBMs Quantum Safe is an end-to-end solution that will assist enterprises and government agencies in identifying and replacing existing cryptography algorithms with new algorithms. Quantum Safe includes a comprehensive set of tools and capabilities to assist in transforming to an environment that can resist quantum threats.

What IBM Quantum Safe is

IBM

Quantum Safe technology brings three critical capabilities: IBM Quantum Safe Explorer, IBM Quantum Safe Advisor and IBM Quantum Safe Remediator. Each of these technology capabilities perform transformational step in the transition process, to discover, observe and transform cryptography. .

Explorer can scan source and object codes, while Advisor provides a dynamic or operational view of system-wide cryptography usage. The combined views of Explorer and Advisor offer a comprehensive view of enterprise-wide cryptography usage, both from a dynamic and static standpoint. Combined information from Explorer and Advisor can also be used to monitor and manage cryptography and any associated vulnerabilities that may arise. It can also be an input to create a transformation roadmap detailing the issues to be addressed first or determine which actions will provide the most significant benefits.

The roadmap can then be used in the transformation process, where Remediator captures best practices and automates actions when possible.

Quantum Safe architecture

IBM

Even though Explorer, Advisor and Remediator are discrete capabilities within the Quantum Safe architecture, they are integrated by sharing the same common informational model.

The Quantum Safe system creates information as a Cryptography Bill of Materials (CBOM) fashioned after the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). The CBOM is an essential tool for migrating to quantum-safe cryptography. It identifies and inventories cryptographic assets and the dependencies, helps plan for the migration to quantum-safe algorithms with single source of truth.

It is important to highlight crucial design consideration in the Quantum Safe system. IBM made a point not to require the installation of any additional agents within the enterprise framework. The objective was to integrate with what people already had. That's why there is integration with external systems and systems of record that already exist, particularly in the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CICD) pipeline, the network monitoring systems and the configuration management database. The CICD pipeline is the set of tools and processes that automate the development, testing and deployment of software.

IBM

The example above shows one of the many possible views of data that can be captured and viewed by having Explorer scan source and object code. This view of a portfolio of applications shows where cryptography exists, along with the remediation status of each instance. This example illustrates results obtained by selecting a specific endpoint in the repository containing Java code for an application. In this instance, Explorer has scanned all of the Java files and identified particular cryptography usage within the scanned files.

The labels are self-explanatory except for the far-left purple ring. In this case, it shows that 14 algorithms are not quantum safe. If any of the algorithms were quantum safe, a portion of the purple ring would be shown as green. Explorer calls out the specific algorithms being used, such as RSA, Diffie-Hellman, AES etc.

IBM

This dynamic view of Advisor shows network data and its corresponding usage of cryptography. Also displayed are the number of TLS services in use and quantum ciphers. Double-clicking on an item will show where it is being used, along with other contextual information. Combining this view with the previous screens can provide even more information about cryptography usage.

It will be vital to use Quantum Safe TLS because a future quantum computer capable of running the Shor algorithm could easily break current TLS communications algorithms. In addition, TLS data-in-transit that has been snooped and stored could be breached at a later time when large fault-tolerant quantum computers become available.

IBM currently provides API for integrating with network security scanning tools that clients already use and ingest that network scan logs to analyze.

IBM

Quantum Safe Remediator can do automated remediation; A this stage of development, there will likely be significant amounts of code that can't be automatically remediated. In those cases, architects and developers should adopt best practices for fixing the code.

Suppose it is necessary to implement a QSE-enabled VPN, or a quantum safe proxy implementation. To address that case, IBM has codified patterns that clients can instantiate in their environment so they can understand how it works and immediately begin using it.

Note that there are only a handful of remediation patterns available. IBM has explained that it will not be creating hundreds of patterns. Instead, the company believes that right now best practice dictates the creation of engagement-driven, high-value codified patterns to provide maximum benefit for clients. It should also be noted that IBM has a library of known patterns. Based on ongoing discovery with Explorer and Advisor, IBM will be able to codify new patterns and make them available to clients.

The Quantum Safe roadmap tracks milestones and timelines

IBM

IBM's Quantum Safe roadmap is designed to identify and reinforce digital transformation initiatives based on emerging technologies. The roadmap will also support remediation efforts to make existing data assets and services quantum-safe. The roadmap also lists dates for significant industry milestones that are driven by standardization, federal government requirements or CNSA guidelines.

Roadmap data should be helpful for federal or civilian agencies or healthcare companies that must follow strict regulations about tracking requirements and dates. Suppliers can also use this information to stay abreast of quantum certification requirements.

The bottom channel on the roadmap consists of IBM infrastructure hardware and software products that on the journey to quantum-safe.

Wrapping up

We cannot predict when the first encryption-protected service or product might be breached by a quantum machine. It could be within this decade or even the next decade. Yet the crucial point remains the same: today's cryptography cannot stop future quantum computers from hacking it.

All data is at risk. Even before quantum computers can crack encryption on the fly, data that uses current encryption methods can be captured and stored by a hacker until quantum computers become powerful enough to defeat the stored data's encryption. And again, any computer system that needs to operate securely for long periods without major modification must be remediated with quantum-safe encryption. Given that almost every digital service and product in use today relies on some form of encryption for protection, it is important for every organization to begin a program to identify and swap out the old encryption for new quantum-safe algorithms as soon as possible. Remediating the old encryption won't be simple and it won't be fast. But it will be worth all the effort.

IBM Quantum Safe greatly simplifies the process of remediating old algorithms, but similar to IBMs existing quantum roadmap, Quantum Safe is an agile product that follows and improves upon the roadmap along the way. IBM will continue to add features to Quantum Safe while experimenting and working with clients to validate and improve its capabilities.

Paul Smith-Goodson is the Vice President and Principal Analyst for Quantum Computing and Artificial Intelligence at Moor Insights & Strategy. You can follow him on Twitter for current information and insights about Quantum, AI, Electromagnetics, and Space.

Moor Insights & Strategy provides or has provided paid services to technology companies like all research and tech industry analyst firms. These services include research, analysis, advising, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking, and video and speaking sponsorships. The company has had or currently has paid business relationships with 88, Accenture, A10 Networks, Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Amazon Web Services, Ambient Scientific, Ampere Computing, Anuta Networks, Applied Brain Research, Applied Micro, Apstra, Arm, Aruba Networks (now HPE), Atom Computing, AT&T, Aura, Automation Anywhere, AWS, A-10 Strategies, Bitfusion, Blaize, Box, Broadcom, C3.AI, Calix, Cadence Systems, Campfire, Cisco Systems, Clear Software, Cloudera, Clumio, Cohesity, Cognitive Systems, CompuCom, Cradlepoint, CyberArk, Dell, Dell EMC, Dell Technologies, Diablo Technologies, Dialogue Group, Digital Optics, Dreamium Labs, D-Wave, Echelon, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Five9, Flex, Foundries.io, Foxconn, Frame (now VMware), Fujitsu, Gen Z Consortium, Glue Networks, GlobalFoundries, Revolve (now Google), Google Cloud, Graphcore, Groq, Hiregenics, Hotwire Global, HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Honeywell, Huawei Technologies, HYCU, IBM, Infinidat, Infoblox, Infosys, Inseego, IonQ, IonVR, Inseego, Infosys, Infiot, Intel, Interdigital, Jabil Circuit, Juniper Networks, Keysight, Konica Minolta, Lattice Semiconductor, Lenovo, Linux Foundation, Lightbits Labs, LogicMonitor, LoRa Alliance, Luminar, MapBox, Marvell Technology, Mavenir, Marseille Inc, Mayfair Equity, Meraki (Cisco), Merck KGaA, Mesophere, Micron Technology, Microsoft, MiTEL, Mojo Networks, MongoDB, Multefire Alliance, National Instruments, Neat, NetApp, Nightwatch, NOKIA, Nortek, Novumind, NVIDIA, Nutanix, Nuvia (now Qualcomm), NXP, onsemi, ONUG, OpenStack Foundation, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, Panasas, Peraso, Pexip, Pixelworks, Plume Design, PlusAI, Poly (formerly Plantronics), Portworx, Pure Storage, Qualcomm, Quantinuum, Rackspace, Rambus, Rayvolt E-Bikes, Red Hat, Renesas, Residio, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Semi, SAP, SAS, Scale Computing, Schneider Electric, SiFive, Silver Peak (now Aruba-HPE), SkyWorks, SONY Optical Storage, Splunk, Springpath (now Cisco), Spirent, Splunk, Sprint (now T-Mobile), Stratus Technologies, Symantec, Synaptics, Syniverse, Synopsys, Tanium, Telesign,TE Connectivity, TensTorrent, Tobii Technology, Teradata,T-Mobile, Treasure Data, Twitter, Unity Technologies, UiPath, Verizon Communications, VAST Data, Ventana Micro Systems, Vidyo, VMware, Wave Computing, Wellsmith, Xilinx, Zayo, Zebra, Zededa, Zendesk, Zoho, Zoom, and Zscaler.

Moor Insights & Strategy founder, CEO, and Chief Analyst Patrick Moorhead is an investor in dMY Technology Group Inc. VI, Fivestone Partners, Frore Systems, Groq, MemryX, Movandi, and Ventana Micro.

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IBM Quantum Safe Technology: Protects Data From Encryption-Busting Attacks By Next-Generation Quantum Computers - Forbes

A mysterious and long-sought particle that can remember its past has been created using a quantum computer. The particle, called an anyon, could improve the performance of quantum computers in the future.

The anyon is unlike any other particle we know because it keeps a kind of record of where it has been. Normally, repeatedly swapping particles like an electron or a photon renders them completely exchangeable, making it impossible to tell the swap has taken place.

But in the 1970s, physicists realised this wasnt the case for certain quasiparticles that can only exist in two dimensions, which were later dubbed anyons. Quasiparticles, as the name suggests, arent true particles, but rather collective vibrations that behave as if they are particles.

Unlike other particles, swapping anyons fundamentally changes them, with the number of swaps influencing the way they vibrate. Groups of a particular variety, called a non-Abelian anyon, bear a memory of the order in which they were swapped, just as a braided piece of rope retains the order in which its strands have been crossed over. But where the threads of a rope interact physically, anyons interact through the strange quantum phenomena of entanglement, where particle properties are inextricably linked through space.

This inherent memory, and the quasiparticles quantum nature, make non-Abelian anyons an attractive way to do quantum computing, but they had never been found experimentally.

Now, Henrik Dryer at quantum computing firm Quantinuum and his colleagues say they have done just that. The researchers developed a new quantum processor, called H2, which uses ytterbium and barium ions trapped using magnetic fields and lasers to create qubits, or quantum bits, the basic building block of a quantum computer.

They then entangled these qubits in a formation called a Kagome lattice, a pattern of interlocking stars common in traditional woven Japanese baskets. This gave the qubits identical quantum mechanical properties to those predicted for anyons and, when the team adjusted the interactions between the qubits in a way that was equivalent to moving the anyons around, they could test for and confirm the distinctive swap-dependent changes to the anyons properties.

This is the first convincing test thats been able to do that, so this would be the first case of what you would call non-Abelian topological order, says Steven Simon at the University of Oxford. The fact that you can play around with the anyons using the quantum computer is also useful for researchers who want to better understand this exotic state of matter, he says.

But not everyone agrees that Quantinuum has actually created non-Abelian anyons, rather than merely simulating them. I know theyre very excited about their work and they should be excited, but it is still a simulation, says Jiannis Pachos at the University of Leeds, UK. That means it might lack certain properties present in the real thing, he says.

Dryer takes a different view, saying that the quasiparticle nature of anyons means that a simulation is identical to the real thing. A counterintuitive property of these anyons is that they are not really physical, they dont care what theyre made of, says Dryer. Theyre just about information and entanglement so if you have any system that can create that kind of entanglement, you can create the same type of anyons.

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The silicon microchips of future quantum computers will be packed with millions, if not billions of qubitsthe basic units of quantum informationto solve the greatest problems facing humanity. And with millions of qubits needing millions of wires in the microchip circuitry, it was always going to get cramped in there.

But now engineers at UNSW Sydney have made an important step toward solving a long-standing problem about giving their qubits more breathing spaceand it all revolves around jellybeans.

Not the kind we rely on for a sugar hit to get us past the 3pm slump. But jellybean quantum dotselongated areas between qubit pairs that create more space for wiring without interrupting the way the paired qubits interact with each other.

As lead author Associate Professor Arne Laucht explains, the jellybean quantum dot is not a new concept in quantum computing, and has been discussed as a solution to some of the many pathways toward building the world's first working quantum computer.

"It has been shown in different material systems such as gallium arsenide. But it has not been shown in silicon before," he says.

Silicon is arguably one of the most important materials in quantum computing, A/Prof. Laucht says, as the infrastructure to produce future quantum computing chips is already available, given we use silicon chips in classical computers. Another benefit is that you can fit so many qubits (in the form of electrons) on the one chip.

"But because the qubits need to be so close together to share information with one another, placing wires between each pair was always going to be a challenge."

In a study published today in Advanced Materials, the UNSW team of engineers describe how they showed in the lab that jellybean quantum dots were possible in silicon. This now opens the way for qubits to be spaced apart to ensure that the wires necessary to connect and control the qubits can be fit in between. Credit: University of New South Wales

In a normal quantum dot using spin qubits, single electrons are pulled from a pool of electrons in silicon to sit under a "quantum gate"where the spin of each electron represents the computational state. For example, spin up may represent a 0 and spin down could represent a 1. Each qubit can then be controlled by an oscillating magnetic field of microwave frequency.

But to implement a quantum algorithm, we also need two-qubit gates, where the control of one qubit is conditional on the state of the other. For this to work, both quantum dots need to be placed very closely, just a few 10s of nanometers apart so their spins can interact with one another. (To put this in perspective, a single human hair is about 100,000 nanometers thick.)

But moving them further apart to create more real estate for wiring has always been the challenge facing scientists and engineers. The problem was as the paired qubits move apart, they would then stop interacting.

The jellybean solution represents a way of having both: nicely spaced qubits that continue to influence one another. To make the jellybean, the engineers found a way to create a chain of electrons by trapping more electrons in between the qubits. This acts as the quantum version of a string phone so that the two paired qubit electrons at each end of the jellybean can continue to talk to another. Only the electrons at each end are involved in any computations, while the electrons in the jellybean dot are there to keep them interacting while spread apart.

The lead author of the paper, former Ph.D. student Zeheng Wang says the number of extra electrons pulled into the jellybean quantum dot is key to how they arrange themselves.

"We showed in the paper that if you only load a few electrons in that puddle of electrons that you have underneath, they break into smaller puddles. So it's not one continuous jellybean quantum dot, it's a smaller one here, and a bigger one in the middle and a smaller one there. We're talking of a total of three to maybe ten electrons.

"It's only when you go to larger numbers of electrons, say 15 or 20 electrons, that the jellybean becomes more continuous and homogeneous. And that's where you have your well-defined spin and quantum states that you can use to couple qubits to another."

A/Prof. Laucht stresses that there is still much work to be done. The team's efforts for this paper focused on proving the jellybean quantum dot is possible. The next step is to insert working qubits at each end of the jellybean quantum dot and make them talk to another.

"It is great to see this work realized. It boosts our confidence that jellybean couplers can be utilized in silicon quantum computers, and we are excited to try implementing them with qubits next."

More information: Zeheng Wang et al, Jellybean Quantum Dots in Silicon for Qubit Coupling and OnChip Quantum Chemistry, Advanced Materials (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202208557

Journal information: Advanced Materials

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Jellybeans: A sweet solution for overcrowded circuitry in quantum computer chips - Phys.org