This weekend, a piece of news about quantum computing hit the circle of friends. According to the Origin Quantum public account, on January 6, China’s third-generation independent superconducting quantum computer “Original Wukong” went online. This quantum computer is equipped with a 72-bit independent superconducting quantum chip “Wukong Core” and is currently China’s most advanced quantum computer. Programmable, shippable superconducting quantum computer.

Fu Bin｜Author

Electronic Engineering World (ID: EEWorldbbs)｜Produced by

Another milestone for domestic quantum

What Origin Quantum is delivering this time is a product based on the superconducting quantum route. Quantum computing internationally mainly includes superconducting quantum, ion trap quantum computing, light quantum, neutral atom quantum, semiconductor quantum, and topological quantum. Among them, superconducting quantum It is the most eye-catching route so far, and it is also the most rapid breakthrough and development. Both IBM and Google quantum computers use superconducting technology.

The main technical routes of quantum computing, source | photon box

"Yicai Global" reported that "Wukong" is equipped with a 72-bit superconducting quantum chip "Wukong Core", which is manufactured on China's first quantum chip production line and has a total of 198 qubits, including 72 working qubits and 126 qubits. Coupler qubits.

"Original Wukong" matches the third-generation quantum computing measurement and control system "Original Tianji", which is the first batch of automated testing of quantum chips in China. The overall operating efficiency of the quantum computer has been increased by dozens of times.

China's third-generation 72-bit superconducting quantum computer is named "Wukong", which comes from the mythical figure Sun Wukong in traditional Chinese culture, which means "72 transformations" like Sun Wukong.

It is understood that Origin Quantum has developed a number of Chinese quantum computers and successfully delivered a quantum computer to Chinese users in 2021. The successful delivery of this quantum computer makes our country the third country in the world with the ability to deliver complete quantum computers.

However, the technical details of "Original Wukong" and the new generation of superconducting quantum computers are very limited, and we still need to look at this product more rationally.

According to Science and Technology Daily, Professor Guo Guoping, the main leader of my country’s third-generation deliverable superconducting quantum computer research team and deputy director of the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, “Although China’s deliverable independent superconducting quantum computer has achieved certain results, progress, but we must be soberly aware that there is still a big gap between my country's grassroots quantum computing research teams and the world's quantum computing powers. Through the continuous hard work of generations, our country's grassroots quantum computing research team must continue to stay firmly at the forefront of global quantum computing technology and bring quantum computing to the forefront. The key core computer technologies are firmly in the hands of the Chinese, and they strive to create stronger quantum computers.”

Of course, quantum computers are still far away from industrialization, and it will take at least 5 to 10 years before large-scale application. Previously, Intel explained to the author that for technologies such as quantum computing, Intel will gradually bring it to the market and apply it on a large scale only after it has practical scenarios.

Why is the whole world scrambling for quantum advancement? Because the potential of quantum computers is only as great as the “hype” surrounding them.

In fact, the current physical size of transistors has reached 4nm, and it is expected that in less than 10 years, it will reach sub-nanometer size. By then, quantum effects will take effect. At that time, no one knew what technology could continue to extend Moore's Law.

In the post-Moore era, quantum technology is expected to help traditional chips break through their performance limits and reshape the modern electronic information manufacturing system with chips as the core through quantum chips. After all, its computing power is almost subversive: to decompose 3 million pieces of big data, the current trillion-time classical computer takes about 150,000 years, while using a quantum computer only takes 1 second.

A set of data from the China Micron and Nanotechnology Society has shown that the main manufacturing process used in quantum chips is around 100nm. In addition, quantum chips are superconducting quantum circuit materials. They only need to use quantum collisions and can realize information exchange. Compared with silicon-based chips, quantum chips The chip's dependence on EUV lithography machines will be greatly reduced.

According to BCG estimates, the value of quantum technology will reach US$5 billion to US$10 billion in the next three to five years; in the next 15 to 30 years, quantum technology is expected to create a market value of US$450 billion to US$850 billion.

At present, the quantum computing industry chain has been clarified. At the same time, it has begun to have some commercial scenarios, including specific problems such as combinatorial optimization, quantum chemistry, and machine learning, guiding material design, drug development, etc., and business models have gradually emerged. There are three categories: computing cloud services, quantum computing machine services, and industry quantum solutions.

Upstream and downstream of the quantum computing industry chain, source | photon box

It should be noted that although China has made certain progress in its own superconducting quantum computers, in comparison, foreign countries have made faster progress in the number of qubits and quantum error correction:

(Note: Error correction is a key focus of quantum computing and is critical to scalability, and the most successful quantum computers will be defined by this metric.)

• In 2019, Google claimed to have achieved quantum hegemony for the first time. The "Platus Tree" quantum processor has 53 qubits, setting a first milestone. In 2022, it will expand its quantum processor to 72 qubits. In February 2023, Google achieved a breakthrough in quantum error correction. On December 28, 2023, Google scientists designed an algorithm that can transform complex physical problems into the language of quantum physics, which may make quantum computers more useful;

• In November 2022, Amazon launched a new chip for quantum computing that suppresses errors by 100 times. According to Amazon, quantum error correction can theoretically be achieved by combining passive and active error correction methods, which is six times more efficient than standard methods;

• On October 26, 2023, the American quantum computer manufacturer "Atomic Computing" developed the world's first quantum computer capable of running 1,000 qubits;

• In December and April 2023, IBM launched the first quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits, IBM Quantum System 2, as well as the next generation quantum processor chips IBM Condor and Heron. Among them, Condor has 1121 superconducting qubits and is the industry's first 1211 qubit quantum chip. In 2021, IBM launched a 127-qubit chip, and in 2022, IBM launched a 433-qubit chip. In addition, IBM scientists discovered a new error correction scheme last year that can reduce the number of qubits by 10 times. This discovery allows IBM to clarify its roadmap for the next ten years;

• On December 8, 2023, the new quantum computer built by QuEra, a Boston-based quantum computing startup in the United States, has the largest number of logical qubits to date - 48, which is more than 10 times the previous number of logical qubits;

• D-Wave Systems specializes in quantum annealing, a special quantum computing method that is particularly suitable for optimization problems. D-Wave's customers include government agencies and private companies. The company is particularly focused on developing logistics, cybersecurity and financial modelling. applications in other fields.

However, when it comes to making quantum computing play practical functions, China is better and has made more research progress:

• Huawei has established a quantum computing research center in Shanghai, dedicated to developing quantum algorithms and software. At the end of 2022, Huawei announced a superconducting quantum chip patent. This technology can effectively reduce the crosstalk problem between qubits and significantly improve the yield rate of quantum chips. This is an achievement that has not been achieved by major US chip manufacturers such as Intel;

• Tencent has invested in quantum computing research and established a quantum computing laboratory in Shenzhen;

• In January 2023, China’s first MLLAS-100 laser annealing instrument dedicated to quantum chip production was successfully developed;

• On May 31, 2023, USTC Guodun Quantum released a new generation of quantum computing cloud platform, which is connected to the same 176-bit superconducting quantum computer as the "Zu Chongzhihao". This not only broke the superconducting quantum computer bit number record for my country's cloud platform, It is also the first quantum computing cloud platform in the world that has the potential to achieve quantum superiority on the superconducting quantum route and is open to the outside world;

• On August 19, 2023, China Mobile and China Electronics Technology launched the "Quantum Computing Cloud Platform", which must be the largest quantum computing cloud platform in China. It is also the first time in the industry to achieve "unified management and hybrid scheduling of quantum and general computing power". "System-level platform, this release marks that my country's quantum computing is gradually moving towards the practical stage. CETC has now broken through the design and manufacturing of 20-bit quantum chips, 9mK-level ultra-low temperature refrigeration, quantum-electronic hybrid computing power control and other core key technology, successfully developed a fully autonomous and controllable 20-bit superconducting quantum computer;

• On September 25, 2023, Baidu released the first large-scale model in the quantum field and two AI native applications, Baidu Quantum Assistant and Quantum Writing Assistant. Just enter 6 variables, and the Quantum Writing Assistant can write a 13,000-word article in 5 minutes. Patent documents in required formats;

• On October 11, 2023, the research team of the Institute of Quantum Information and Quantum Technology Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the University of Science and Technology of China cooperated with the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Parallel Computer Engineering Technology Research Center to successfully construct 255 photons The quantum computing prototype "Jiu Zhang No. 3" has once again set a new world record for the technical level of optical quantum information and the superiority of quantum computing;

• On November 10, 2023, China Telecom released the "Tianyan" quantum computing cloud platform to achieve the integration of "Tianyi Cloud" supercomputing capabilities and 176-qubit superconducting quantum computing capabilities, promoting the practicalization of quantum computing. It is reported that China Telecom plans to connect 500-1000 qubit real machines by 2025 and provide multi-system super-integrated computing power services. By 2030, it will be connected to a super quantum computer with no less than 10,000 qubits;

• On November 28, 2023, Liangxuan Technology announced the delivery of independently developed and produced superconducting quantum chips to a Middle Eastern scientific research institution, becoming the "first" Chinese company to deliver superconducting quantum chips overseas;

• Dianke Network Security Company has forward-looking research on quantum cryptography and other technologies;

• Guangxun Technology and HKUST Guodun Quantum Technology Co., Ltd. jointly developed quantum chips, which have reached industrial application and achieved the expected strategic goals;

• Sanan Optoelectronics’ quantum chip is in the research and development stage;

• Researchers from Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University and other institutions said in their papers that they have invented a new algorithm that can achieve 48-bit factorization using only 10 superconducting qubits. With this algorithm, only 372 qubits are used. Can break the current mainstream cryptography system (RSA-2048 password). In theory, a quantum computer with the current technical level can crack today's mainstream cryptography system. In the past, at least tens of thousands of qubits were needed.

  
  

With the advent of quantum computing, there is no lack of "conceptions", "excessive elevation" and "academic doubts".

A Xinhua News Agency report showed that within one year, more than 2,000 "quantum companies" of various types emerged in China, "grafting" the principles of quantum mechanics with traditional industries such as cosmetics, agriculture, food, clothing, and automobiles. In fact, these companies are not the industrialization of quantum technology, but "pseudo-innovation" that is a hot topic. “Until now, quantum technology has no products that ordinary people can use, and it won’t be possible in a short time.

For quantum computing, in the future it may first be used in specific calculations, just like CPUs and GPUs, to become accelerators to solve certain specific problems.

We are still at least 10 years away from the large-scale application of quantum computing, but China has gradually invested limited qubits in specific fields to generate practicality. Under actual application, quantum computing can have more improvements in practicality. , like a wheel, constantly spinning.

"Just like the steam engine was installed on a carriage for the first time, who would have thought that it would have the power to change the world!" For such a technology that will change the future, China has gradually found its entry point.