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It’s the latest quantum computer hardware maker to come out of
the lab at a time when funding for the nascent technology is
booming.
While there are various technologies for creating so-called
quantum bits or qubits where the computations happen, QuEra’s
qubits use neutral atoms in a vacuum chamber and use lasers to
cool and control them.
“From 2015 when we had an empty lab with nothing to 2017, the
work that we were doing at Harvard and MIT, we were already at
the stage where we could control 51 of these neutral atom qubits,”
said Alex Keesling, QuEra CEO and co-inventor of the technology.
He said this technology was easy to scale up and that QuEra
would have a 1000-qubit computer in two years. Today it has a
256-qubit machine, he said.
International Business Machines Corp, whose quantum computers
are already available through the cloud, is aiming for a
1000-plus qubit machine in 2023 https://research.ibm.com/blog/ibm-quantum-roadmap.
Although it's hard to compare the performance of the different
machines just based on the number of qubits, say several
researchers of quantum computers.
For those looking to try out the QuEra machine, Keesling said
the goal is to make it available through the cloud by the third
quarter of next year.
While there is some debate about when quantum computers will be
able to crack real-world problems, researchers believe quantum
computers could operate millions of times faster than today's
advanced supercomputers, potentially making possible tasks such
as mapping complex molecular structures and chemical reactions
to boosting the power of artificial intelligence.
(Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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