The first fully programmable optical quantum computer is launched: 7.8 trillion times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer Fugaku

Supercomputers are usually used to solve problems that cannot be completed by classical computers. So what if the speed of supercomputers is not enough? Now, a new type of photonic quantum computer can complete a task that would take a conventional supercomputer more than 9,000 years in just 36 microseconds.

The photonic quantum computer, called Borealis, is the first machine capable of delivering quantum advantages to the public via the cloud.

Theoretically, quantum computers have quantum advantages and can find answers to problems that classical computers cannot solve. The computing power of quantum computers increases exponentially with the number of qubits.

Both tech giants like Google, IBM, Amazon, and startups like IonQ rely on qubits based on superconducting circuits or ion traps. One drawback to these methods is that they all require extremely low temperatures because heat can destroy qubits, and systems to control low temperatures are very expensive.

In contrast, quantum computers using photon qubits can in principle operate at room temperature and can be easily integrated into existing fiber-based telecommunications systems, potentially helping Connect quantum computers to powerful networks and even to the quantum internet.

In recent years, quantum computers such as Sycamore and Jiuzhang have been released one after another. Among them, Jiuzhang-2 is a photon-based quantum computing prototype developed by the University of Science and Technology of China. On the Gaussian Bose sampling problem, Jiuzhang-2's processing speed is billions of billions of times (10 to the 24th power) faster than the fastest supercomputer.

The main disadvantage of Jiuzhang-2 is that it relies on fixed reflective mirrors and lenses. It is therefore not programmable, which limits its overall application.

Now, in a new study, "Quantum Computing Superiority of Programmable Photonic Processors," Toronto-based quantum computing startup Xanadu has unveiled a new device, Borealis, that may It is the first fully programmable photon quantum computer. This research was officially published in the journal Nature on June 1.

Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04725-x. pdf

"Borealis is the first machine with quantum computing advantages that is publicly available to anyone with an Internet connection," said the study's senior author, Xanadu Systems Integration Team Director Jonathan Lavoie said

In Borealis, qubits are made of so-called "squeezed states", consisting of the superposition of multiple photons in a light pulse. Due to the surreal nature of quantum physics, traditional qubits can exist in a state called superposition, where they can represent 0 or 1 of data, while squeezed states can exist in states of 0, 1, 2, 3 or more exist.

Borealis is capable of generating sequences of up to 216 compressed light pulses. "It's important to realize that Borealis is not equivalent to a conventional 216-qubit device. Because it uses qubits in a compressed state, it handles different quantum tasks than devices based on superconducting circuit qubits or ion traps," Lavoie said. .

High-dimensional GBS from a fully programmable photonic processor.

In the experiment, the researchers tested Borealis in a task called Gaussian Boson Sampling, where random data patches were analyzed by machine. Gaussian boson sampling could have many practical applications, such as identifying which molecules are best suited to each other.

In previous work, Jiuzhang-2 detected as many as 113 photons in 144 compressed light pulses. In this work, Borealis detected up to 219 photons in its sequence of compressed light pulses, compared with the typical level of 125. All in all, scientists estimate that Borealis can perform Gaussian boson sampling 7.8 trillion times faster than Fugaku, the world's fastest conventional supercomputer in 2021.

A key advancement at Borealis is the use of photon number-resolving detectors. Previous machines used threshold detectors designed to distinguish only between "no photons detected" and "at least one photon detected." Lavoie said the size of the computational problems a photonic quantum computer can solve grows exponentially with the number of photons it can detect, so the photon-number-resolved detector allows Borealis to run as fast as previous photonic quantum computers. More than 50 million times.

Xanadu makes Borealis available to everyone via the cloud. "We're also working with partners to make it more widely available," Lavoie said. "We hope that its public availability will inspire more research on quantum advantage and Gaussian boson sampling in general." Errors and eventual fault tolerance to solve the most valuable problems in quantum computing. Many of the technologies and lessons learned while building Borealis will be incorporated into the [future models] architecture.

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