The technology is centered on the fact that quantum particles such as electrons exist in superpositions of states.
Quantum mechanics also dictates that particles will only collapse into one single measurable state when observed by a user.
On classical computers, we write and process information in a binary form.
Similarly, quantum bits (also known as qubits) are the native information carriers on quantum computers.
Much like bits, we read binary outcomes of qubits, that is 0 or 1 for each qubit.
This means that we can encode much more information in a qubit than in a bit.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
This is a paradigm for quantum computation, analogous to conventional computers.
If uncorrected, these errors can cause qubits to lose their quantum information, rendering computations completely useless.
This occurred for the first time in 2011, when the first quantum annealer was commercialized.
With this event, feasible routes emerged towards reliable quantum processors containing thousands of qubits capable of useful computations.
Quantum annealing is an advanced technique for obtaining optimal solutions to complex mathematical problems.
It is a quantum computation paradigm alternative to operating on qubits with quantum logic gates.
At the time, however, the technology still required high levels of expertise to operate.
Learn more about the team, and find the original articlehere.
