Quantum computing breakthrough could speed up tackling cancer and climate change, scientists say Scientists believe a breakthrough in applying quantum theory to computing could pave the way to solving global warming and curing […]

Scientists believe a breakthrough in applying quantum theory to computing could pave the way to solving global warming and curing cancer.

Teams across the world have long been seeking to design a computing chip that can integrate quantum interactions. But now engineers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) believe they have solved the quantum quandary.

Entanglement

One of the computer scientists behind the innovation suggested it could be a bigger achievement than the Moon landings.

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This would use “entanglement” and “superposition” – two principles of quantum physics – to expand binary code and store multiple values at once. And it could therefore process numerous operations at once . This means it could solve complex problems millions of times faster.

Qubits

The team’s paper, Silicon CMOS architecture for a spin-based quantum computer, is published in the journal Nature Communications. They say that for the first time, there is a conceivable engineering bluebrint toward creating millions of quantum bits. These are known as qubits.

Project co-leader Dr Menno Veldhorst, who has since left UNSW for QuTech in the Netherlands, said: “Remarkable as they are, today’s computer chips cannot harness the quantum effects needed to solve the really important problems that quantum computers will.

Cancer and climate change

“To solve problems that address major global challenges – like climate change or complex diseases like cancer – it’s generally accepted we will need millions of qubits working in tandem.”

Researchers elsewhere are exploring several other approaches to quantum computing. But the authors of the UNSW study said these provided “no clear pathway to scaling the number of quantum bits” high enough, without producing a challengingly-vast and expensive infrastructure.

‘Like a symphony’

Fellow author Andrew Dzurak, the director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW, said: “We often think of landing on the Moon as humanity’s greatest technological marvel.

“But creating a microprocessor chip with a billion operating devices integrated together to work like a symphony – that you can carry in your pocket – is an astounding technical achievement, and one that’s revolutionised modern life.

“With quantum computing, we are on the verge of another technological leap that could be as deep and transformative.”