Thursday, May 20, 2021

Google promises to make a Logical Qubit

In my skepticism about quantum computing, I have occasionally remarked that all the claims about research machines with dozens of qubits is exaggerated, because they still have not made a true qubit yet. Here is an explanation of that.

Google announces at its annual I/O conference:

Within the decade, Google aims to build a useful, error-corrected quantum computer. ...

To begin our journey, today we’re unveiling our new Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara, California. ...

[wild futuristic hype snipped]

To reach this goal, we’re on a journey to build 1,000,000 physical qubits that work in concert inside a room-sized error-corrected quantum computer. That’s a big leap from today’s modestly-sized systems of fewer than 100 qubits.

To get there, we must build the world’s first “quantum transistor” — two error-corrected “logical qubits” performing quantum operations together — and then figure out how to tile hundreds to thousands of them to form the error-corrected quantum computer. That will take years.

To get there, we need to show we can encode one logical qubit — with 1,000 physical qubits.

Got that? Google claims that it has achieved quantum supremacy, but it is still a long way from building a system with even one logical qubit.

2 comments:

  1. Google is a desperately woke company in search of fake problems to sling their plentiful virtue signaling dollars at.

    When finite reality finally catches up to their infinite hype, the PR wave will collapse and this project will vanish like a rainbow unicorn fart in a hurricane.

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  2. >> "Google claims that it has achieved quantum supremacy, but it is still a long way from building a system with even one logical qubit."

    LOL!

    Ok. Noted.

    ...

    I do wish them the best possible progress on the materials science- / condensed matter physics-side, though. *Something* good on that side *can* happen, though *scalable* *QC*, as demonstrated with factoring large enough numbers, wouldn't. Not IMO, anyway...

    Best,
    --Ajit

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