ScienceAlert: A Huge Step Forward in Quantum Computing Was Just Announced: The First-Ever Quantum Circuit

[Madner Kami]

You thought Russia choose a bad time to cut itself off from having access to cutting edge technology, when they went to war with Ukraine in 2014, making it a hot one in 2022? You have no idea how bad this time really was, because:

Australian scientists have created the world's first-ever quantum computer circuit – one that contains all the essential components found on a classical computer chip but at the quantum scale.

The landmark discovery, published in Nature today, was nine years in the making.

"This is the most exciting discovery of my career," senior author and quantum physicist Michelle Simmons, founder of Silicon Quantum Computing and director of the Center of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW told ScienceAlert.

Not only did Simmons and her team create what's essentially a functional quantum processor, they also successfully tested it by modeling a small molecule in which each atom has multiple quantum states – something a traditional computer would struggle to achieve.

[...]

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-huge-ste ... um-circuit

The process they used isn't really something you can easily scale up for mass production and we're still a good way off of letting this kind of tech permeate through general society, but well, here we are. It took 11 years from the first transistor to the first integrated circuit and another 20ish years for computers to become something everyone had at their home in one form or another. Quantum-tech is currently 2 years ahead of schedule, with the first quantum transistor having been made by the same team 9 years ago.

To infinity and beyond!

[Thebestoftherest]

What is a quantum circuit exactly in layman terms?

[clearspira]

What is a quantum circuit exactly in layman terms?

I've been following this for years so I will do my best. A modern computer system stores information in binary - 1's and 0's. Quantum computing uses the qubit AKA the quad from Star Trek. Unlike a normal computer bit, which is either a 0 or a 1, a qubit can be BOTH a 0 or a 1 simultaneously, or even an intermediate state between the two. I am not smart enough to explain how this is accomplished but it involves some high end, God-level quantum physics.

Anyway, unlike a normal transistor based computer, a qubit's power increases exponentially with every qubit you have strung together whereas a bit only increases on a linear curve. This means that in theory, unlike a bit, a qubit has no upper limit. You could hold the entire internet on one system and not even touch the sides.

This is tech that we should be excited about as quantum computing is so intelligent that we could solve every problem we have within a matter of years. This is how we reach the stars. We should also be absolutely terrified, because if this goes wrong, we are talking Skynet here.

[Madner Kami]

What is a quantum circuit exactly in layman terms?

It's an electronic device which can process the information contained within a qubit. As Clearspira points out, the classical bit can contain one of two information states. 0 or 1. On or off. Left or Right. Up or Down. The qubit is capable of taking up the state of either 0 or 1 or 0 and 1. The way this works out in practise is, that one qubit can contain the information of 2 bits. With 2 qubits, you can represent the information contained in 4 bits. 3 qubits represent the same as 8 bit. I think you can work out from here, why this is literally a quantum leap. Right now, computer processing power scales linearly with each transistor added. With quantum devices, this becomes exponential.

On a CPU-die of current-day transistor-amounts, you could simulate every single atom within the observable universe at the same time and still have enough left to do it multiple times over simultaneously.

[hammerofglass]

Oh gods I was trying to find out if that was dealt with in trinary or what and the answer was math so far over my head it might as well be wizardry.

Is this what IT stuff looks like to end users? Explains so much.

[Madner Kami]

Oh gods I was trying to find out if that was dealt with in trinary or what and the answer was math so far over my head it might as well be wizardry.

Is this what IT stuff looks like to end users? Explains so much.

It is not dealt with in trinary. Trinary allows for three distinct states of a bit (for lack of a better word). The important distinction is, that a qubit allows for the simultaneous state of 0 and 1, while itself still only being a two-state system.

[Frustration]

On a CPU-die of current-day transistor-amounts, you could simulate every single atom within the observable universe at the same time and still have enough left to do it multiple times over simultaneously.

No. This is just plain wrong. A corrected version would still be a ridiculous overstatement and a gross implausibility, but the statement as it stands is incorrect.

Atoms are complex quantum-mechanical systems. You can't represent a system in another system less complex than the first. The simplest possible representation of the visible universe IS the visible universe; no computational system less extensive and complex can do the job.

[Madner Kami]

You can't represent a system in another system less complex than the first.

You can. It's called abstraction.

[Frustration]

That's just a limited model that can only roughly represent the reality. The map is always less complete than the territory.

[Madner Kami]

So do you get high on spouting tautologies? Naturally, any abstraction is less complex than what you are abstracting. That's the entire point: To create a model which is less complex but still sufficiently representative in order to make it more comprehensible. You know, the exact thing I did above.