Opening of the era of quantum computer commercialization

On January 8 (local time), IBM CEO of Virginia Marie Rometty made a keynote speech at CES 2019. At this point, IBM introduced a few new technologies, but it was a new computer that was eye-catching. It is IBM Q System One.

This product has enough value, not just real performance. This is the first quantum computer in the world that is trying to commercialize.

The IBM Cue System One takes the form of a quantum computer body mounted in a 2.7-m-sided cube. The box surrounded by 13mm thick glass is highly airtight and the frame is made of aluminum and steel. Inside, storage and control electronics are separated to keep maintenance in mind. Surrounding the body with aluminum and steel frames reflects consideration for avoiding potential vibration interference for phase noise or quantum coherence.

This product stands for universal quantum computer. It can not be said that it is small in size, but it is compact in comparison with existing large quantum computers in the laboratory, and it can be bought and used by the company because it operates singly. It could be said that it showed the possibility of lowering the threshold of the quantum computer itself.

The reason is this. So far, a stable cooling system has been required for stable use of quantum computers. For this reason, I was able to use it in a large facility such as a laboratory. It seems that the inclusion of a quantum computer in a 2.7m square is not “too big” but “so small”.

IBM Cue System One is a quantum computer hardware designed to automatically calibrate to obtain reproducible and predictable high quality quantum bits, cryogenic engineering to provide a low-temperature isolated quantum environment, precision electronics to control a large number of quantum bits, And an existing computing system that provides a hybrid execution environment for quantum algorithms.

Of course, the ability of this computer is 20 qubits, which makes it difficult to compare it, but it also means that it is not within the range that can be operated on existing computers. However, as mentioned earlier, considering the fact that it is the first attempt to commercialize a quantum computer, more than one value of simple computing performance may be sufficient.

◇ Why pay attention to quantum computers = So why pay attention to quantum computers? If a quantum computer is put to practical use, quantum superposition in which existing bits exist only in 0 or 1 in the existing computer at the same time in two states, quantum entanglement in which two quantum bits become the same state at the same time, .

Again, the interest in quantum computers is growing because of the limitations of computers today.

In fact, components of a computer are simple, such as a memory device, a computing device, and a control device. Computers have chips and modules, logic gates, and transistors. A transistor is simply a switch. Shed or stopped information.

The minimum unit of information data flowing here is represented by bits. As mentioned above, the bit has a value of 0 or 1. A bit can not be represented by either 0 or 1, but multiple bits can represent more complex information.

The logic gate handles simple operations. If it is an AND gate, it is a simple form to send 1 if it is all 1 and 0 if it is not. However, this also makes it possible to perform all calculations, such as addition and multiplication. All you need is a bundle for simple calculations. It’s simple, but if it gets bigger, it can handle physics and even complex 3D gameplay.

The problem is from here. As the material becomes smaller, the character of both becomes visible. As mentioned earlier, the transistor is an electric switch and the current is the movement of electrons. The switch blocks this flow. The transistor size currently in use is typically 14nm. It is only one-eighth the size of the HIV virus and one-fifth of the red blood cells. Intel has announced 10nm mass production, but it’s been a long time since Moore’s law has been hard to keep.

Anyway, as this size gets smaller, the electrons get out of the wall by the tunnel effect. Exiting out of the barrier with a certain probability. Technology is reaching physical limits.

It is a quantum computer that is designed to solve this problem. Existing computers use bits, but quantum computers use quantum bits, which are both particles that can take two states simultaneously. The states 0 and 1 are close to the polarization state of the photon. Quantum bits can exist in two states at once, not in one state, but it is called superposition.

To represent 4 bits of information on a regular computer, 16 quantum bits can be displayed at one time. Thanks to 20 cubits you can have as many as 1 million parallel.

As mentioned earlier, there is a phenomenon of quantum entanglement. This means that even if two qubits are separated, they are in the same state at the same time. One can see the state of another.

However, quantum bit operation is difficult. The logic gate is output to one input, but the quantum gate of the quantum computer is complex in input and output. Observing that the input to the qubit is entangled through the quantum gate, all possible calculations are being made at the same time. The problem is that the result I want to achieve is one of these. It is necessary to have the trouble to find it.

Although there are such problems, it is possible to make quick calculations by making good use of both characteristics. For example, a database search. Retrieval of an existing database needed to refer to all of the elements as much as we needed to refer to the data one by one to investigate something, and of course it took a long time. However, the quantum algorithm can search for a square root of time. In other words, a search that took a million seconds could end in 1,000 seconds.

Information security. Currently, the Internet or a bank encrypts and protects information through public key cryptography. Of course, public key cryptography can be decrypted by calculation, but it takes a few years to process it with an existing computer. But if you use a quantum computer here, you can end it in an instant.

It can also be used for simulation. Simulation is a field that requires extensive computation. In addition, quantum mechanics itself can be used for research. Of course you can help with medical advancement. It can be used in areas that require high computational power, such as discovery of new substances or drugs that conventional computers could not solve, complex stock market calculations, and AI research and development.

◇ Establishment of a quantum computing data center in New York in the second half of the year = IBM is not the only one to compete for the quantum computer market. In March, Google announced a quantum processor, Bristlecone. A common PC processor has a 0 or 1 state in 1 bit. However, Bryston is equipped with 72 quantum bits that are superimposed with 0 and 1 information at the same time.

Google has long been targeting quantum computers. Since its acquisition of D-Wave, Google has been developing on the basis of this quantum computer technology, and in 2014 it has also been testing the performance of the D-Wave 2.

Intel also announced that it has successfully produced a prototype of a superconducting chip with 17 qubits of processing power in 2017. Scientific magazine Nature said that starting in 2017, quantum computers will move from research to development.

Back to IBM again, IBM announced IBM Q Experience, a service that allows users to experiment with quantum computing based on the cloud in 2017. Q Experience has done more than 6.7 million experiments and has collaborated on more than 130 research papers.

IBM also launched the IBM Q Network program that same year. The program began with the goal of contributing to the expansion of the quantum computing ecosystem by providing quantum computing development resources such as the 20 Q-bit cloud-based IBM Q system. There were 12 companies and organizations including Samsung Electronics, JP Morgan Chase, Daimler AG, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, European Particle Physics Research Institute (CERN), Oxford and Melbourne University.

After this process, IBM finally announced IBM QS System One, the first commercialization model. At the time of product announcement, IBM announced that it would open IBM Q Quantum Computation Center in New York City in the second half of this year. And will open a quantum computing data center. It will expand its commercialized quantum computing program and expand the accessibility of research institutes and enterprises. This is an expansion strategy for cloud-based quantum computing ecosystems from Q Experience.

Anyway, IBM QS system means that it has been possible or possible to introduce a quantum computer that has stayed in the lab until now. For more information, please click here .