Quantum computing at scale, an important challenge that we have been trying to overcome for years, and to which Intel and QuTech have managed to respond with a very important advance, since they have been able to fabricate the first silicon qubits at scale. It is quite an achievement that mainly confirms two things: that quantum computing is still “a little big” for us, and that it has been possible to overcome the problem that this type of qubits present in terms of errors.
On the first issue, it is no secret that quantum computing is still at an early stage, and that it will probably take several decades before this type of computing can be positioned at the level that traditional, bit-based computing currently occupies. . As our regular readers will know, in traditional computing a bit can take a single value of 0 and 1while quantum computing a qubit can take the value of 0 and 1 at the same time.
Regarding the second issue, when manufacturing silicon qubits, a major problem arose due to the appearance of errors that it was not always possible to correct. Such type of qubits are prone to errorsand if these occur too quickly, it is not always possible to correct them in real time, with all that this entails.
I wanted to explain all this to you because it is necessary to contextualize, and to better understand, the importance of what Intel and QuTech have achieved, the creation of the first scale silicon qubits. For this, a 300mm optical lithography process at Intel’s manufacturing plant in Hillsboro, Oregon.
That process can fabricate more than 10,000 arrays with various spin-silicon qubits integrated into a single wafer, and with a yield greater than 95%. It goes without saying that it is a very important achievement, both in terms of number of qubits and performance, which surpasses all the alternative processes currently used and which also demonstrates that silicon qubits can be produced at scale using the same factories dedicated to semiconductors.
Jim Clarke, Director of Quantum Hardware at Intel, commented:
“Quantum computing has the potential to deliver exponential performance for certain applications in the high-performance computing space. Our research shows that a large-scale quantum computer is not only feasible, but could be produced in today’s chip factory. We look forward to continuing to work with QuTech to apply our silicon fabrication expertise to unlock the full potential of quantum.”
