The Russians Are Coming

The Russian bear is muscling onto the field of quantum computing, and its latest accomplishment—the creation of a two-qubit, feedback-controlled circuit—is a major step in that direction.

As has been explained elsewhere at Futurism, quantum computing—if it’s ever attained—will represent a quantum leap (pun intended) in the evolution of human computing systems, touching upon such fields as artificial intelligence, cryptography, and medicine, to say nothing of the pure mathematical and scientific breakthroughs that such a technology could facilitate.

It means forsaking binary, two-bit computing with ones and zeroes, for something incomparably greater—the ability to use quantum superposition in qubits to store the information of both one and zero at the same time and in the same place. It means surpassing the power of room-sized supercomputers with something the size of a desktop.

And now researchers at the Laboratory of Artificial Quantum Systems at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIST) have brought the dream closer to fruition.

One Qubit, Two Qubits

Last year, the Russian team developed a single qubit circuit. It’s a small step, but an important one on the road to quantum computing; and now they’ve developed a two-qubit circuit, which is a major achievement toward producing a multi-circuit architecture—in other words, an actual computer.

“In the past 6 months, MIPT’s lab has done substantial and laborious work to organise the measuring process of superconducting qubits,” says Alexey Dmitriyev, a member of the research team. “Arguably, MIPT currently has the necessary infrastructure and human capacity to deliver on building advanced qubit systems.”

The next steps include refining the construction and operation of the qubits and acquiring and deploying the specialized equipment necessary for quantum computing—which requires extremely cold temperatures.

Meanwhile, Russia is now poised as a major competitor in the world of quantum computers.