Rigetti Computing says to be closer to its goal of making a working quantum computer. This computer has to solve problems faster for less money, or with better quality results than traditional machines.
Quantum computers process computations by means of so-called “qubits”. These are many times more powerful than traditional “bits” in classic computers. An ordinary bit can only be 0 or 1, a quantum bit – or qubit – can be 0, 1 or something else. This could be 1/2, 9/16 or another point on a multidimensional axis.
We call this a “superpositioning” characteristic. Qubits must be able to represent a complex problem that normal computers cannot understand.
Problems
In the past, the company already made an 8-qubit and a 19-qubit quantum computer hosted in the cloud available to researchers from universities and national laboratories. Demonstrating the “quantum advantage”, as they call a working quantum computer, is, however, still an “open challenge”. There are still some bears on the way to building powerful quantum computers, says Silicon Angle.
The only problem in achieving this goal is that it needs “thousands or even millions of qubits” to play with. According to Rigetti Computing, such devices are still decades away from us.
Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services
However, the company believes it has come up with a temporary solution that “allows researchers and developers to work on the quantum advantage on devices that come out faster”. That solution is the Rigetti Quantum Cloud services, which is a hybrid quantum-classical platform, combined with the best parts from both computers.
Researchers are said to have already started making hybrid algorithms that can use quantum computers as coprocessors in a traditional computer. This makes it possible to achieve the quantum advantage with tens or hundreds of qubits. The objective has not yet been achieved, but the new solution would be a major step in that direction.
According to the company, the new service should make it possible to run quantum-classical programs in a virtual traditional computing environment, together with the quantum hardware. Tasks that normally lasted seconds now last for milliseconds.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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