Keep cool to enhance power: Breakthrough in quantum computing capacity

Is this the future of computing and technology? Image © Tim Sandle

Interest in quantum computing remains high. One limitation relates to the fact that controlling qubits also heats them. The heat from the control interface poses a fundamental challenge to scaling up quantum devices into complex quantum machines. A new study demonstrates a spin qubit platform that can operate at elevated temperatures. This offers significant practical importance.

The leading quantum computing modalities require cooling to extremely low temperatures, very close to absolute zero (-273.15 °C). At higher temperatures, the qubits (the basic building blocks of quantum computing) falter due to the excess heat generated, rendering the technology impractical. 

To overcome this, researchers at Diraq (an Australian startup) have succeeded in operating spin-based quantum computers at 20X warmer temperatures compared with current systems. This represents a milestone toward the availability of powerful, cost-effective and energy-efficient systems.

Diraq have demonstrates the capability of the company’s spin-based quantum processors to operate at temperatures 20 times warmer than previously demonstrated while maintaining stability and high accuracy. This helps to address the scale-up challenge in quantum computing to reach millions of qubits.

The advancement in cooling techniques demonstrates provides high-fidelity spin qubit operation and algorithmic initialisation above 1K. This is a temperature compatible with the operation of conventional electronics.

The significance of this is based on the future-state ability to integrate conventional electronics with quantum systems. This synergy will enable the complex error correction codes required for fault-tolerant quantum computing, eventually leading to a spin-based quantum chip with millions of qubits.

Commenting on the breakthrough, Dr. Yonatan Cohen, co-founder and CTO of  Quantum Machines, a provider of quantum control solutions, explains: “We take immense pride in supporting Diraq’s groundbreaking work. This contribution is crucial to the advancement of the field, as it establishes the feasibility of operating spin qubits at elevated temperatures—specifically, above 1 Kelvin.”

Cohen adds: “This breakthrough implies that we can now operate these qubits in environments that are ‘merely very cold’ as opposed to the ‘extremely cold’ temperatures previously required. This significant difference greatly simplifies the scaling process, thereby accelerating the journey towards the development of large-scale, practical quantum computers.”

The research has been published in the science journal Nature, titled: “High-Fidelity Spin Qubit Operation and Algorithmic Initialisation Above 1K.”