Google experts have unveiled a technology that, with the use of artificial intelligence, can make quantum computing practical in real life. This is stated in an article in Nature.
In the presented work, Deepmind researchers explained that their new AI system AlphaQubit has been successful in correcting persistent errors that have long plagued quantum computers.
'Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize drug discovery, materials development, and fundamental physics if we can make them work reliably,' Google stated. Ultra-powerful computing devices are extremely fragile: even the slightest environmental interference such as heat, vibration, electromagnetic fields, or even cosmic rays can disrupt quantum states. This will lead to errors and unreliable computations.
One previously published paper claims that for practical applications of quantum computers, the error rate should not exceed one in a trillion operations. Some tasks will take ordinary computers billions of years to solve, while a quantum computer will require only a few hours. However, new processors are more susceptible to noise compared to ordinary ones. 'If we want to make quantum computers reliable, especially at scale, we need to accurately identify and correct these errors,' Google emphasized.
The new AI system AlphaQubit uses a complex neural network architecture that has demonstrated high accuracy in detecting and correcting quantum errors.
The solution maintained high accuracy in quantum systems ranging from 17 to 241 qubits. This suggests that the approach could scale to larger systems necessary for practical quantum computing.
AlphaQubit faces significant hurdles before realization.
'Each consistency check in a fast superconducting quantum processor is measured a million times per second. While AlphaQubit excels at accurately identifying errors, it is still too slow to correct errors in a superconducting processor in real-time,' the developers claim.
Researchers focused on optimizing speed, scalability, and integration.
The crypto community fears the hacking of blockchains by quantum computers. Fears have intensified following the 'world's first effective attack' on the algorithms Present, Gift-64, and Rectangle.
The fastest computer in the world
While quantum computers have the potential to disrupt blockchains like the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, this cannot be said about even the fastest ordinary supercomputers.
Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that their latest supercomputer El Capitan is capable of performing 2.79 quadrillion (a number with 15 zeros) calculations per second—making it the fastest computer in the world. It operates 5.4 million times faster than a standard home PC.
