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Title: A New Ion-Based Quantum Computer Makes Error Correction Simpler

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/06/0137...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The US- and
UK-based company Quantinuum today unveiled Helios, its third-generation
quantum computer, which includes expanded computing power and error
correction capability. Like all other existing quantum computers, Helios is
not powerful enough to execute the industry's dream money-making algorithms,
such as those that would be useful for materials discovery or financial
modeling. But Quantinuum's machines, which use individual ions as qubits,
could be easier to scale up than quantum computers that use superconducting
circuits as qubits, such as Google's and IBM's. "Helios is an important proof
point in our road map about how we'll scale to larger physical systems," says
Jennifer Strabley, vice president at Quantinuum, which formed in 2021 from
the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum. Honeywell
remains Quantinuum's majority owner. Located at Quantinuum's facility in
Colorado, Helios comprises a myriad of components, including mirrors, lasers,
and optical fiber. Its core is a thumbnail-size chip containing the barium
ions that serve as the qubits, which perform the actual computing. Helios
computes with 98 barium ions at a time; its predecessor, H2, used 56
ytterbium qubits. The barium ions are an upgrade, as they have proven easier
to control than ytterbium. These components all sit within a chamber that is
cooled to about 15 Kelvin (-432.67 ), on top of an optical table. Users can
access the computer by logging in remotely over the cloud. [...] Helios is
noteworthy for its qubits' precision, says Rajibul Islam, a physicist at the
University of Waterloo in Canada, who is not affiliated with Quantinuum. The
computer's qubit error rates are low to begin with, which means it doesn't
need to devote as much of its hardware to error correction. Quantinuum had
pairs of qubits interact in an operation known as entanglement and found that
they behaved as expected 99.921% of the time. "To the best of my knowledge,
no other platform is at this level," says Islam. [...] Besides increasing the
number of qubits on its chip, another notable achievement for Quantinuum is
that it demonstrated error correction "on the fly," says David Hayes, the
company's director of computational theory and design, That's a new
capability for its machines. Nvidia GPUs were used to identify errors in the
qubits in parallel. Hayes thinks that GPUs are more effective for error
correction than chips known as FPGAs, also used in the industry. Quantinuum
has used its computers to investigate the basic physics of magnetism and
superconductivity. Earlier this year, it reported simulating a magnet on H2,
Quantinuum's predecessor, with the claim that it "rivals the best classical
approaches in expanding our understanding of magnetism." Along with
announcing the introduction of Helios, the company has used the machine to
simulate the behavior of electrons in a high-temperature superconductor.
Quantinuum is expanding its Helios line with a new system in Minnesota. It's
also started developing its fourth-generation quantum computer, Sol, set for
2027 with 192 qubits. Then, a fifth-generation system, Apollo, is expected in
2029 with thousands of qubits and full fault tolerance.

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