Will we ever have quantum laptops?
About 80 years ago, the world was at war. Under cover of secrecy, scientists in the UK, Germany and the US were creating the first electronic computers. These computers filled rooms, required large amounts of electricity and enabled calculations that were previously impossible. Few people involved would have thought that decades later, instructions for more powerful computers could fit into a backpack – yet that’s exactly what happened.
So, as we sit on the brink of something truly important quantum computinghave we ever seen quantum laptops? “I think it’s possible,” Mario Gelyquantum computing researcher at the University of Oxford, told Live Science. “It’s very speculative, but I can’t think of a fundamental reason why a quantum laptop wouldn’t be possible.”
Here are some of the steps it will take to get there.
Adding the qubit number
Before scientists can make a quantum laptop, they need to make a working quantum computer, period. Questions remain as to where they are qubits – the quantum equivalent of digital bits – are needed to create a quantum computer that really works, or that can solve many important, real-world problems that are impossible. the best superclassical computers. But of course it is higher than possible.
Stephen Bartletta theoretical quantum physicist and director of the University of Sydney’s Nano Institute, thinks we could see truly useful quantum computers by the end of this decade. “There are a lot of problems in open science, which make the road murky, but we’re getting closer,” Bartlett told Live Science.
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For example, quantum has just been introduced charge-coupled device (QCCD) construction architecture. it could be used to create two-dimensional arrays of qubits instead of one-dimensional ones – which would increase the density, and possibly the number of qubits.
Reducing errors in quantum computers
But scaling brings another challenge to building a tiny quantum computer: correcting errors, or “noise.” “Our existing quantum components are noisy, so we need error correction, and that requires a lot of defects,” Bartlett said. Scientists need to reduce errors or build error correction into quantum computers, and that requires even more qubits. Many scientists are trying to solve this problem.
For example, a December 2023 Study he tried to reduce errors by building a quantum computer with “logical qubits.” To another paperpublished in April 2024, scientists created a new type of qubit that acted as a logical error-correcting qubit. Some scientists have even proposed using photons (light particles) as qubits, including another lesson which used a laser pulse. According to Peter van Loock, a professor of theoretical quantum optics at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany and a co-author of the study, this method has an “inherent power to correct errors”.
So if, within a decade or two, powerful and efficient quantum computers are available, the next step would be miniaturization.
Choosing different types of flowers
But to get even smaller, quantum computers may need to focus on a different type of qubit than currently known. Some of today’s most advanced computers – such as those made by IBM and Google – rely on them quantum processing units full of superconducting qubits. But the first quantum laptop probably won’t use this technology.
That’s because, by their very nature, superconducting qubits must be cooled by the surface layer a full note – around 20 millikelvin – and that requires filling the chamber with dilution refrigerants. And companies like IBM aren’t trying to get around a disruption of this magnitude. For example, now IBM quantum computing roadmap it sets goals that include a 2,000-qubit quantum computer by 2033 — one that would fill more rooms than one.
Quantum laptops may rely on trapped ion qubits, charged particles that exist in multiple states at the same time and are suspended using electric fields, Bartlett and Gely explained. Although trapped ions operate at room temperature and do not rely on room-sized refrigerators, the lasers they use are enormous.
“Currently, our laser system takes up about a cubic meter [35 cubic feet],” Gely said. “If we consider that ion traps are the future, then we need lasers to be smaller.”
And lasers must not only shrink but also go further. The current system is designed to block 100 ions. “How many qubits you can control with this number of laser devices is not clear,” Gely said. “You can control many more qubits than we have today, but certainly not millions of qubits for a full quantum computer.”
However, two recent advances may help with miniaturization. First, future QCCDs may facilitate miniaturization by increasing qubit density. The second, in July, Stanford researchers created titanium-sapphire lenses that are 10,000 times smaller than the ones they replace.
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Miniaturization efforts will increase
Right now, scientists are focused on making quantum computers more powerful, not making them smaller. “The drive for miniaturization is not as strong at the time as the performance drive, and it mimics the early days of mainstream computers when we had mainframes,” said Bartlett. “People thought of the most powerful computers as taking up a building. And you know, why would anyone seriously consider carrying it in your bag?”
The history of computers suggests that quantum computers will first be used for industrial, military and government applications before moving on to consumers. The apocrypha 1943 quote from Thomas Watson Sr. that there will be a “world market of maybe five computers” he recalls.
Of course, the global market for PCs and laptops is huge, so could there be a similar explosion in demand for quantum PCs and laptops? “The question I always get in my quantum computing classes is, you know, ‘When can I play Doom on a quantum computer?'” Bartlett said. “But why would you want to when you can play Doom right on your computer today?”
Instead, Bartlett suggested that there could be “a lot of human resources like finance or something related to information security” – but the truth is, no one knows. Gely has proposed another quantum processor that sits close to the classical processor. “It’s like having a graphics card, but it can be useful for certain tasks,” Gely said.
It is not yet clear that quantum laptops will be useful to consumers. What experts can say with high confidence is that all hardware obstacles – increasing the number of qubits, correcting errors and miniaturizing cand parts – can be overcome. However, the quantum laptop of the future probably won’t play Doom.
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