What is a quantum computer?
A quantum computer is a computer that uses the principles of quantum physics to store data and make complex calculations.
They work completely differently than your laptop or mobile phone and are even more superior than supercomputers.
What makes them so unique is their ability to undertake calculations with large amounts of data using the process of superposition.
Quantum computers are highly sensitive and things such as heat or electromagnetic fields can cause the system to crash.
How much does a quantum computer cost?
Whilst Orca have not announced how much their quantum computer costs, it is expected to be in the tens of millions.
In 2017, the German D-Wave quantum computer had a price tag of $15 million.
Speaking about the collaboration, Chief Executive of Orca Richard Murray, said the MoD’s purchase is a “significant vote of confidence”.
Adding: “Our partnership with the MoD gives us hands-on close interaction; and working with real hardware will help us to jointly discover new applications of this revolutionary new technology.”How does a quantum computer work?
A quantum computer uses quantum physics to help bridge the gap between binary numbers.
Normal computers use binary numbers that can be in either 0 or 1, whereas quantum computers use memory called qubits, which allow for different digit arrangements that can occur at the same time.
This process is known as quantum superposition.
Orca’s quantum computer system also uses photons, or single units of light for tasks like image analysis and decision-making.
The MoD has said that having the quantum computer will help them understand the latest technology.
Why has the Ministry of Defence got one?
The MoD has purchased a quantum computer to help them understand how its processes can help the UK.
The deal has been called a “milestone moment” by Stepehen Till, who works at the DSTL.
He explained: “Accessing our own quantum computing hardware will not only accelerate our understanding of quantum computing, but the computer’s room-temperature operation will also give us the flexibility to use it in different locations for different requirements.”
However, there is still a lot to learn about quantum computers.
Speaking to the BBC, Professor Winfried Hensinger, head of the Quantum Technologies at University , explained its full potential would take time to materialise.
He explained: “They can’t actually solve any practical problems yet. They’re enabling you to maybe gauge the possibilities of what working on a quantum computer would have if you can scale this machine to really large system sizes.”Speed advantage
Huang and his team used their mathematical framework to prove the speed advantage on three broad classes of quantum problems, which involved measuring and predicting properties of a quantum system, extracting information from noisy real-world signals and learning how quantum systems change through time. For each problem, they showed that the classical version of the experiment would need to be run an exponential number of times more.
Unlike previous examples of quantum advantage like boson sampling, these problems could have useful applications, such as building advanced sensors to detect gravitational waves or measuring complex biological systems.
The researchers then performed two experiments that demonstrated this advantage on Google’s Sycamore quantum computer, made challenging by the presence of statistical noise, which wasn’t covered in their proofs.
The first experiment measured quantum properties of a system that is inaccessible to classical computers because of the uncertainty principle, which says, for example, that we can’t be certain about both the position and the momentum of particles at the same time. The second experiment involved finding whether a quantum process was the same if it was run forwards or backwards in time, which could be important in high-energy and nuclear physics.
“The authors are able to show that there are some experiments where there’s a lower bound on how many samples you’re going to need using a classical computer,” says Ashley Montanaro at the University of Bristol, UK. “They’re able to outperform that bound even using a noisy quantum computer, which, for me, is a very impressive achievement given the early stage of today’s quantum hardware.”
While the framework that Huang and his team came up with is general, they only used it for specific classes of problems. Future work will need to explicitly prove quantum advantage for many more quantum problems, says Huang.
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