Princeton engineers have taken a significant step toward developing useful quantum computers by creating a superconducting qubit that remains stable for three times longer than the strongest versions available today.
“The real challenge, the thing that stops us from having useful quantum computers today, is that you build a qubit and the information just doesn’t last very long,” said Andrew Houck, leader of a federally funded national quantum research center, Princeton’s dean of engineering and co-principal investigator on the paper. “This is the next big jump forward.”
The breakthrough was described in the November 5 issue of Nature, where the team reported that their qubit stays coherent for more than 1 millisecond. This represents the longest lifetime ever demonstrated in laboratory tests and is nearly fifteen times better than what is typically used in commercial-scale processors. To confirm the improvement, the researchers built a working quantum chip using the new design, overcoming one of the main limitations that prevent reliable error correction and large-scale quantum systems.
The team explained that their qubit uses an architecture similar to the systems developed by Google and IBM, making it compatible with existing processor designs. Houck said that replacing parts of Google’s Willow processor with Princeton’s components could make it operate 1,000 times more effectively. He added that the advantages of the new approach grow even more quickly as more qubits are added, increasing the overall impact in larger systems.
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