Cooling quantum computers
+ To keep systems in a quantum state, designers have to minimize the risk of anything disrupting the fragile position. The slightest temperature increase can mean that atoms and molecules move around too much, potentially causing a quantum bit (qubit)’s voltage to spike, and flip from one quantum state to another.
“Quantum chips have to operate at very low temperatures in order to maintain the quantum information,” [Jim] Clarke said. To do this, Intel uses cryogen-free dilution refrigerator systems from specialist Blufors.
+ A debate rages about which approach is best, but one huge advantage of spin qubits, which more closely resemble existing semiconductor components, is that they are expected to have a ‘much’ higher operating temperature. Instead of 20 millikelvins, they can run at around one degree. That might not sound like a huge difference, but “believe it or not, it makes things tremendously easier.”
+ “Our goal is to get it to a rack-mounted system,” Chapman said. He pointed out that the company’s approach vastly differs from the superconducting system used by IBM (which, according to a different benchmark, claims to be the world’s most powerful quantum computer).
Source: DCD. Sebastian Moss, Cooling quantum computers…
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