Sina Technology News Beijing time on April 2 news, According to foreign media reports, Microsoft announced a new advance in quantum computers two days ago: They achieved a 'semi-electronic' state in a piece of wire. This will be the company's quantum computer. The research and development play a key role.
Big companies such as IBM, Google and Intel, and even several start-up companies have already invented quantum computers with multiple qubits. Microsoft seems to be lagging behind, and even single-qubit computers are not yet available. But Microsoft is working on R&D. Its own unique quantum computer solves the challenges that plague its competitors through the integration of difficult and complicated physics knowledge. If everything works as expected, this will be a major breakthrough.
Quantum computers use basic quantum physics principles to perform complex computations that are difficult or impossible for ordinary computers to implement. You may have heard of Google's 72-qubit computers, but the accuracy of such machines is difficult to guarantee. As long as they are slightly disturbed, or The energy impact of the external environment can cause calculation errors. However, Microsoft's 'topology' quantum computer may greatly reduce such noise interference. Related researchers have made some progress in recent years and published papers in the journal Nature. They believe that by the end of this year, effective qubits will be developed.
'One of our qubits will be a thousand, or even 10,000 times more powerful than other noisy qubits.' said Julie Love, head of development at Microsoft's quantum computing business.
Computers operate on bits. A bit is a two-state system, just as a coin may face up or back up. The same is true for qubits, except that the 'coin' is flipped in a black box during operation. You can only set the initial value of both sides of the coin. These values are all complex numbers in the form of a+bi. After the calculation, you can get the probability that the coin is facing up or down. You can only know the coin after opening the black box. What is the value? The operation needs to bind several coins together and put them into a black box, and let them interact in a special way, so that these initial values are mathematically combined with each other. The final calculation result depends on all In the coins of the coffin, some combinations of positive and negative faces are more likely to appear, and others are completely impossible.
This system can be used for a variety of purposes, such as for advanced chemical simulations or artificial intelligence. But the key is to find a unique quantum 'coin front and back' system in which two states can form a superposition (ie, black box). , entangled with each other (that is, the coins are tied together) and interfere with each other (the probability that the coin will change in both directions when it is combined in the black box). And in this system, even if you shake the dice, the coin can continue to flip , Or make up for these disturbances by doing redundant processing.
Microsoft researchers believe that the key to solving the interference problem lies in establishing a set of topological systems. Regardless of how the system is changed, it always has some inherent properties that remain unchanged. These systems are so-called extension objects.
Researchers first need to create topological objects. Microsoft has specially manufactured a semiconductor wire made of indium antimonide, which is wrapped with superconducting aluminum. The researchers then cooled the wire to near absolute zero in a magnetic field. , which causes collective behavior in the electrons, forcing part of the electrical performance to exhibit discrete values.
In this way, the information in the system is not stored in a single particle, but stored in the collective behavior of the entire wire. If the wire is manipulated in a magnetic field, it will behave like a half electron. Or more precisely, like particles in a state between 'electronics' and 'non-electronics'. These are the so-called Mayorala Fermions, also known as the Majorana null model. They are collectively owned by the system. Topology protection. You can have one of Mayolana Fermi spinning around the wire, but it will not interfere with other fermions.
These Mayorana zero modules can also form a double qubit state. If they are put together, they will either become zero or they will become a complete particle.
This is the latest advancement announced by Microsoft scientists at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and other universities. They have observed strong evidence in the wire to prove the existence of these 'semi-electronic' Mayoralana zero-modules.
After reading this, you may have become confused. Simply put, it is Microsoft that developed an atomic system. It seems that each end has half an electron. If you only move one of the 'semi-electronics', the entire system is unique. The configuration will not be destroyed. If you connect the two 'half electrons', you will get one of two quantum states: yes, no.
But to truly implement quantum computing, it is not enough to do it. 'We need to have two Majurana Fermats spinning around each other, and the results of the exchange between the two should follow non-Abel statistics.' And Leo Kouwenhoven of Delft University of Technology stated that. That means we need to really manipulate Mayorana Fermi in some way.
Don't be scared off by the word 'non-Abel'. It means very simple: Perform two different operations on Mayorana Fermi. If you change the order of the two operations, the result of the operation will change accordingly. For example, if you flip your phone away from you once and then rotate it to the right one time, it will be oriented in one direction; and if you first turn the phone to the right, then move it away from you. Once it flips, it will be in a different direction than before. This is a set of non-Abelian operations. In simple terms, if you exchange two Mayorna fermions in different ways, you will get different Measurement results.
In theory, any quantum calculation requires at least four Mayorala fermions to complete. Suppose four Mayorana fermions are located at the four corners of the letter H, respectively, with two special wires in the middle. First exchange the top two Mayorana fermions, and then exchange the two side Mayorana Fermions. The measurement result will be different from the results obtained by “Side Exchange”.
This exchange action is called 'braiding' and is equivalent to tying together the coins in the black box above. The reason why non-Abelian statistics must be followed is that the physical rule defaults that every particle is exactly the same. If the system uses conventional electronics, exchanging them will not preserve any information on previous actions. But these Mayorana Fermi have non-Abelian characteristics, meaning that they can retain the 'memory' of previous actions. In this way, we can distinguish different qubits and use them to perform operations.
Researchers have not yet validated the process in the experiment. But Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft’s quantum vice president, previously said that they expect to make this discovery within a year.
Cuvenhoven pointed out that these extension qubits do not currently have all the functions of other qubits. If all possible combinations of the two quantum states are considered to be points on the sphere, the above exchange operations cannot cover all the points for the time being. However, Kevin Howwan suggested: 'We already have a plan.'
The physicists who did not participate in the study are also excited about this. 'I think this paper is of great significance.' said Smitha Vishveshwara, associate professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Think 'compilation' sounds crazy, or deviant: 'A lot of progress is still in place. But every time a new development is verified, it's very exciting.'
She also felt equally excited about the development of physics itself. The 'Mayorana particle' was originally a particle that existed only in theory, as its own antiparticles existed in free space. Scientists are not yet in 'blank space' Finding such particles, but finding their 'analog version' in such a system is also very interesting.
Microsoft has invested millions of dollars in hopes of discovering new physical principles in well-designed systems and helping its own development of quantum computers. This explains to some extent why Microsoft has not yet developed effective paired qubits. Although the company is also carrying out hardware research and development as well as a user-oriented R&D toolkit using programming languages.
Microsoft believes that if everything goes according to plan and runs smoothly, they will have the most powerful qubits in the world and soon be able to catch up with other competitors. 'Our qubits are much more stable than other companies,' Jolie. Laffer pointed out, 'If you want to build a house, bricks will suffice; but to build a skyscraper, you have to use our steel-like solid quantum bits.'