Scribd
Upload
56 views

Quantum Computing, Revised

revised

Uploaded by

xihe.mailbox
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
56 views

Quantum Computing, Revised

revised

Uploaded by

xihe.mailbox
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

1

Quantum Computing: Where the Fun Is at


By Sylvia He

What Is Quantum Computing?

Unlike the binary bits in classical computing, the qubits in quantum computing (QC)
exist as 1s and 0s simultaneously and act as a group. As a result, at 300 qubits,
quantum computing will be enough to calculate all the information in the universe,
according to some calculations.

There are multiple challenges in quantum computing. However, the field is making
steady progress toward a high-performance quantum computer that can solve difficult
problems in cryptography, chemistry, and artificial intelligence.

According to Boston Consulting Group, hardware and end-to-end providers are building
the commercial foundations of quantum computing, while specialist software service
providers focus on solving particular questions.

Which Companies Are Making Quantum Computers?

The hardware system providers include D-Wave, IBM, Intel, IonQ, Quantum Circuits,
QuTech, and Rigetti.

D-Wave is the only company selling quantum computers. Google and NASA have been
testing their quantum computers since 2013. Each quantum computer by D-wave costs
over $10 million; the first unit was sold to cybersecurity firm Temporal Defense Systems
Inc. for $15 million.

While IBM has not started selling quantum computers, it has raised the capacity of its
quantum computer to 50 Qubit by 2017. And in early 2019, IBM announced Q System
One, a 20-qubit, nine cubic-feet quantum computer, which many saw as a significant
step towards mass commercialization.

Using a 49-qubit test chip from Intel, the Dutch company QuTech plans to offer access
to its QC prototype platform (Quantum Inspire) as well as QC processor in early 2019.
2

While its previous focus has been software, Rigetti is working to have a functioning 128
Qubit quantum computer by the summer of 2019. Other companies working on quantum
computer prototypes include Quantum Circuits, a spinoff from Yale University, and IonQ.

Which Companies Give Access to Quantum Computers?

Companies that allow access to their quantum computing capacity include IBM, Alibaba,
D-Wave, and NTT.

On the Quantum Experience (or Q Experience) platform, IBM has put an experimental
five-qubit processor on the web for members of the public to apply for access. The IBM
Quantum Experience website has four modules: 1) a tutorial, 2) a quantum composer
for configuration, 3) a simulator to model the parameters before the actual run, and 4)
access to actual runs on the machine. IBM reports that over 80,000 users of the IBM Q
Experience have collectively run over 3 million experiments that resulted in more than
70 research papers.

In collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Science, Alibaba Quantum Company


Laboratory provides access to an 11-qubit quantum computing on the Alibaba
cloud. Users can write, execute quantum circuits on an online interface remotely, and
download the results afterward. The website also has simulation capabilities. Users can
watch a video demo and access the sign-up page here.

D-Wave has recently launched a real-time cloud platform called Leap. By offering public
access to Leap, D-wave hopes to build an ecosystem around the technology. Every
access session to the D-Wave 2000Q quantum computers is one minute, which,
according to D-Wave, would be enough to solve 400 to 4000 problems. Users can also
pay for more time at $2,000 per hour and up.

Lastly, NTT, or the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, gives free access to a new
prototype QC here.

Which Software Companies Have SDK for Quantum Computing?

The end-to-end providers such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, Rigetti, D-Wave, and Xanadu
offer their own cloud-based open-source software platform.
3

IBM founded the Python-based #Qiskit and the Javascript-based #Qiskit-JS open-
source quantum computing framework. Applications made via QiSKit or Qiskit-JS can
be tested on Q Experience.

#Cirq is an open-source Python library for creating and editing software to be run on
quantum computers and simulators; Cirq is currently available on OpenFermion-Cirq.
Although associated with Google’s AI Quantum Team, Cirq is not an official Google
product.

Microsoft’s Q# (“Q sharp”) is a multi-paradigm open-source language specific for


quantum algorithms. Q# has mostly replaced Microsoft’s earlier LIQUi|> architecture.
Microsoft has developed Q# to run against its existing simulator and eventually on its
physical hardware. Q# is integrated with Microsoft’s Visual Studio development
environment so that its codes can run on simulators on a local system or the Azure
cloud platform. In addition, #Quantum Katas, on the other hand, is a self-paced
programming project that teaches developers how to write code for quantum computers
with Q#.

The Rigetti Forest quantum computing consists of a quantum instruction language (Quil),
an open-source Python library for Quil programming, a library of quantum programs
(Grove), and a simulation environment (Quantum Virtual Machine).

D-Wave’s Leap™ Quantum Application Environment provides free, real-time access to


a D-Wave 2000Q™ quantum computer, an open-source Ocean software development
kit, tutorials in the form of interactive demos and coding examples, and knowledge-
based articles, and a community forum for collaboration and support.

Xanadu’s software QC library comes in two parts: PennyLane, a Python-based platform,


and Strawberry Fields, a full-stack Python library for designing, simulating and
optimizing QC programming.

Which Organizations Offer QC Simulators on Regular Computers?

Many organizations offer quantum computing simulation on a regular computer; most of


these organizations are non-profit research institutions.

#ProjectQ is one of the better-known platforms. ProjectQ is a hardware-agnostic,


Python-based, open-source QC framework with programming and simulation
capabilities. It lets users code in Python and then translate the codes into any back-end
4

for a simulator on a classical computer or an actual quantum computer (such as IBM Q


Experience).

Another better-known platform is Quantum Computing Playground, a simulation


environment developed in 2014 by a group of Google engineers. With its own scripting
language, Quantum Computing Playground can run various algorithms and efficiently
simulate quantum computation up to 22 qubits. Quantum Computing Playground is
more suitable for intermediate and advanced users.

There are too many stimulation platforms to name here. Some are high-performing with
large qubits, such as the Atos Quantum Learning Machine offered by Atos and the UK’s
Science & Technology Facilities Council (38 qubits) and the Quantum Inspire, which is
built by QuTech and supported by the Dutch national supercomputer (37 qubits). Some
are specialty platforms, such as OpenFermion, which gears towards chemistry and
material sciences. Moreover, a few platforms are student- or beginner-friendly, such as
Quantum User Interface (University of Melbourne), QCircuits, and Quirk, which simulate
small-scale quantum operations and have user-friendly interfaces. Lastly, Qibo is an
open-source, Python-based simulator by Qilimanjaro; it supports virtual machines of
IBM, Rigetti, and Qilimanjaro.

Conclusion

Quantum computing is on a steady upward trajectory, as venture funding and


government grants pour in. On the other hand, the field is in flux; at any given time,
many projects are initiated and then completed or abandoned. As the field adds newer
technologies like photonic, silicon-based, and topological to the current superconducting
and trapped ion technologies, it is likely to improve its hardware and increase access to
quantum computation.

You might also like