Lifeboat Foundation

Both quantum computing and machine learning have been touted as the next big computer revolution for a fair while now.

However, experts have pointed out that these techniques aren’t generalized tools – they will only be the great leap forward in computer power for very specialized algorithms, and even more rarely will they be able to work on the same problem.

Continue reading “What’s Inside a Black Hole? Quantum Computers May Be Able to Simulate It” »

Our new US2QC program aims to determine if an underexplored approach to quantum computing is capable of achieving operation much faster than conventional predictions. https://ow.ly/ABgY50I1qEq

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have constructed and tested a system that allows commercial electronic components—such as microprocessors on circuit boards—to operate in close proximity with ultra-cold devices employed in quantum information processing. That design allows four times as much data to be output for the same number of connected wires.

In the rising excitement about quantum computing, it can be easy to overlook the physical fact that the data produced by manipulation of quantum bits (qubits) at cryogenic temperatures a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero still has to be initiated, read out, and stored using conventional electronics, which presently work only at room temperature, several meters away from the qubits. This separation has obstructed development of quantum computing devices that outperform their classical counterparts.

That extra distance between the quantum computing elements and the external electronics requires extra time for signals to travel, which also causes signals to degrade. In addition, each (comparatively very hot) wire needed to connect the electronics to the cryogenic components adds heat, making it hard to maintain the ultracold temperature required for the quantum devices to work.

Circa 2021

Small, affordable, ‘plug-and-play’ quantum computing is one step closer. An Australian startup has won $13 million to make its diamond-based computing cores shine. Now it needs to grow.

ANU research spinoff Quantum Brilliance has found a way to use synthetic diamonds to drive quantum calculations. Now it’s on a five-year quest to produce commercially viable Quantum Accelerators. The goal is a card capable of being plugged into any existing computer system similar to the way graphics cards are now.

Continue reading “Small, diamond-based quantum computers could be in our hands within five years” »

The trial started in March 2021 and was completed in early 2022.

Schran agrees. “This new mechanism of friction is definitely very interesting and exciting,” he says. “But what is missing in my opinion, is a clear benchmark measurement.” Quantifying, for instance, how friction changes based on water’s interaction with single versus multiple layers of carbon atoms could go a long way to fully verifying the new theory, which predicts that greater numbers of electrons in the multilayered carbon will boost friction.

The study team is already progressing along this path and dreaming of what lies beyond. They are hoping to eventually test their theory with flowing liquids other than water, and nanotubes composed of elements besides carbon. In such cases, molecules in the liquid and the electrons within nanotube walls would follow different patterns of interaction, possibly leading to changes in the degree of quantum friction. Lydéric Bocquet says that it may even be possible to control the amount of friction a flowing liquid experiences by constructing nanotubes with electron behavior explicitly in mind.

The new study sets the stage for years of complex exploration by experimental and theoretical physicists alike and, according to Kavokine, also signals a fundamental shift in how physicists should think about friction. “Physicists have long thought that it is different at the nanoscale, but this difference was not so obvious to find and describe,” he says. “They were dreaming about some quantum behavior arising at these scales—and now we have shown how it does.”

A major breakthrough in quantum sensing technology is being described as an “Edison moment” that could, scientists hope, have wide-reaching implications.

A new study in Nature describes one of the first practical applications of quantum sensing, a heretofore largely theoretical technology that marries quantum physics and the study of Earth’s gravity to peer into the ground below our feet — and the scientists involved in this research think it’s going to be huge.

Known as a quantum gravity gradiometer, this new sensor developed by the University of Birmingham under contract with the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense is the first time such a technology has been used outside of a lab. Scientists say it’ll allow them to explore complex underground substructures much more cheaply and efficiently than before.

An object hidden below ground has been located using quantum technology — a long-awaited milestone with profound implications for industry, human knowledge, and national security.

University of Birmingham researchers from the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing have reported their achievement in Nature. It is the first in the world for a quantum gravity gradiometer outside of laboratory conditions.

The quantum gravity gradiometer, which was developed under a contract for the Ministry of Defence and in the UKRI-funded Gravity Pioneer project, was used to find a tunnel buried outdoors in real-world conditions one meter below the ground surface. It wins an international race to take the technology outside.

Poli imagines using quantum gravity sensors to monitor groundwater or magma beneath volcanoes, or to help archaeologists uncover hidden tombs or other artifacts without having to dig them up (SN: 11/2/17). These devices could also help farmers check soil quality or help engineers inspect potential construction sites for unstable ground.

“There are many tools to measure gravity,” says Xuejian Wu, an atomic physicist at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., who wasn’t involved in the study. Some devices measure how far gravity pulls down a mass hanging from a spring. Other tools use lasers to clock how fast an object tumbles down a vacuum chamber. But free-falling atoms, like those in quantum gravity sensors, are the most pristine, reliable test masses out there, Wu says. As a result, quantum sensors promise to be more accurate and stable in the long run than other gravity probes.