{"id":179302,"date":"2025-09-30T04:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T04:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/179302\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T04:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T04:40:11","slug":"the-latest-quantum-computing-advances-becoming-a-living-organism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/179302\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest Quantum Computing Advances — Becoming a Living Organism?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, this story that just dropped from\u00a0Physics.org<\/a>\u00a0about the latest developments in the field of quantum computing really blew me away:<\/p>\n

One often-repeated example illustrates the mind-boggling potential of quantum computing: A machine with 300 quantum bits could simultaneously store more information than the number of particles in the known universe.<\/p>\n

Now process this: Harvard scientists just unveiled a system that was 10 times bigger and the first quantum machine able to operate continuously without restarting.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0Nature, the team demonstrated a system of more than 3,000 quantum bits (or qubits) that could run for more than two hours, surmounting a series of technical challenges and representing a significant step toward building the super computers, which could revolutionize science, medicine, finance, and other fields.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

The Harvard-led collaboration included researchers from MIT and was jointly headed by Lukin, Markus Greiner, George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics, and Vladan Vuletic, Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics at MIT.<\/p>\n

The article goes on to recapitulate the main differences between conventional (binary) computing and quantum computing before detailing this team\u2019s new contributions to the field of quantum computing:<\/p>\n

Systems of neutral atoms (those with no electrical charge because they have equal numbers of protons and electrons) have emerged as one of the most promising platforms for quantum computers.<\/p>\n

But one stubborn problem has been “atom loss”\u2014qubits escaping and losing their coded information. This shortcoming has limited experiments to one-shot efforts in which researchers must pause, reload atoms, and begin again.<\/p>\n

In the new study, the team devised a system to continually and rapidly resupply qubits using “optical lattice conveyor belts” (laser waves that transport atoms) and “optical tweezers” (laser beams that grab individual atoms and arrange them into grid-like arrays). The system can reload up to 300,000 atoms per second.<\/p>\n

“We’re showing a way where you can insert new atoms as you naturally lose them without destroying the information that’s already in the system,” said Elias Trapp, the paper co-author and a Ph.D. student at the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Arts and Sciences studying physics. “That really is solving this fundamental bottleneck of atom loss.”<\/p>\n

The new system operated an array of more than 3,000 qubits for more than two hours\u2014and in theory, the researchers said, could continue indefinitely. Over two hours, more than 50 million atoms had cycled through the system.<\/p>\n

Lukin added, “This new kind of continuous operation of the system, involving the ability to rapidly replace lost qubits, can be more important in practice than a specific number of qubits.”<\/p>\n

And if this weren\u2019t already impressive enough:<\/p>\n

In\u00a0another paper<\/a>\u00a0also published in\u00a0Nature, the Harvard-MIT team demonstrated an architecture for reconfigurable atom arrays to simulate exotic quantum magnets.<\/p>\n

The approach allows the connectivity of the processor to be changed during the process of computation. In contrast, most existing computer chips\u2014like the ones in your cellphone or desktop\u2014have fixed connectivity.<\/p>\n

“We can literally reconfigure the atomic quantum computer while it’s operating,” said Lukin. “Basically, the system becomes a living organism.” [emphasis mine]<\/p>\n

In a third\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0published in\u00a0Nature, the team demonstrates a quantum architecture with new methods for error correction. With this new body of research, Lukin believes that it is now possible to envision quantum computers that can execute billions of operations and continue running for days.<\/p>\n

“Realizing this dream is now in our direct sight for the first time, ever,” he said. “One can really see a very direct path towards realizing it.”<\/p>\n

It looks like the Brave New World of quantum computing and true artificial intelligence may be even closer than we thought!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OK, this story that just dropped from\u00a0Physics.org\u00a0about the latest developments in the field of quantum computing really blew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-179302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}