The coldest place in Oregon isn't at the bottom of Crater Lake or on a windswept peak atop Mount Jefferson.

It's inside a windowless room in Hillsboro, deep within an Intel research lab.

There, engineers are doing something strange. They're freezing computer chips to 460 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, colder than deep space, to simulate the quantum structure of the universe.

At such extreme temperatures these remarkable chips, called qubits, enable scientists to peer into the complex, uncertain interaction of particles at the atomic level - an unseen world in which seemingly contradictory results can exist simultaneously, a place where simply observing an interaction can change it. Or wreck it altogether.

"Quantum - it's something weird," said Mike Mayberry, Intel's chief technology officer and general manager of Intel Labs.

Intel and its rivals are racing to develop quantum computers that could vastly exceed the capabilities of the conventional computers we have today. But it will be a decade or more before they succeed in producing high-performing quantum computers, if they ever do.

To Intel, though, it's worth the chance. At a time when classical computers are bumping up against the laws of physics, Intel hopes to bend those laws and open a new frontier.

In time, engineers believe quantum technology could enable a wondrous leap in computing capabilities: Picture superconductive power lines to bring down energy costs, sophisticated medical devices, advanced pharmaceuticals and magnetically levitating trains.

Intel won't say how much it is spending on its quantum research, but in 2015 it committed $50 million to a university partnership for promoting quantum technology. The company says its commitment at this point is comparable to prior investments in semiconductor materials and transistor technology, breakthroughs that extended advancements in conventional chip technology for many years.

Quantum research puts Intel into unfamiliar territory, though, departing from the transistor and binary computing expertise it built its name on for the strange world on the edge of theoretical physics. It's also an open field, where new competitors could emerge to dislodge Intel's from its perch atop the tech industry.

"We're in the lead pack but in the first mile of a marathon," Mayberry said. "We're in it for the long run. We do intend to win."

'SPOOKY ACTION'

Classical computers process information as a series of 1's and 0's. That is rooted in the basic structure of the microprocessors that serve as each computer's brain.

But the natural world isn't binary; it's quantum. That means it's complex and unpredictable. At the atomic level, interactions repeated multiple times won't always come out the same way.

"Quantum states are weird because they bend our understanding of the physical world," said Jim Held, director of emerging technologies research at Intel Labs.

Think of a coin: heads or tails.

"But what if I spun that coin on a desk. Is it heads or is it tails? You might say it is both," Held said.

Qubits are 1 and 0, at the same time, at least for a moment. That freaky, indeterminate state is known in quantum physics as "superposition."

Pair these qubits and you take two possible states and enable four. Add another, two-state qubit and you get eight potential states. Link more qubits and the complexity continues multiplying.

It's an odd notion, that two separate objects could share a single state - even when they're physically separated. Albert Einstein famously called this "spooky action at a distance." Physicists today refer to it as "entanglement."

In quantum computers, entanglement enables an exponential increase in computing power as more and more qubits are linked. According to Intel, a couple hundred entangled qubits could enable more simultaneous calculations than there are atoms in the universe.

You wouldn't want to do your banking on a quantum computer: It would give you a different answer every time. Balancing your checkbook would be a nightmare.

But for other applications, like crafting individualized radiation treatments to specific cancers or modeling drug interactions on every protein in the human genome, quantum computers could be more powerful than conventional supercomputers and more capable.

Using today's computers, scientists developing especially complex materials have only one option: trial and error. And that's impossibly unwieldy for the level of complexity required in many advanced applications, from drug research to superconductor development.

"There are some materials problems that cannot be classically computed," said Anne Matsuura, director of quantum and molecular technologies at Intel Labs in Hillsboro.

As analogs to the natural world, quantum computers are better positioned to simulate chemical compositions and molecular interactions than classical, binary computers. Quantum computers could explore a nearly infinite number of possibilities, then help researchers narrow it down to a single path.

The U.S. and other governments are investing in quantum computing, both for the scientific opportunities it opens and also for unique encryption capabilities quantum enables.

Rival companies already have their own quantum research under way, among them Microsoft, Google and IBM. Intel acknowledges some competitors have been working in quantum longer than it has but argues it brings something unique to the quantum race.

Intel believes it can use its own chip architecture to make qubits with cutting-edge technology and process control that enables it to tightly control production and produce qubits that behave more reliably.

"I'm optimistic, but if you knew it was going to work it would be done by now," said Jim Clarke, director of quantum hardware in Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group. "If it's not going to work we want to be the first to know as well."

'HIGH PAYOFF, HIGH RISK'

Advances in quantum computing come as progress in conventional computing has dramatically slowed.

Intel's 10-nanometer microprocessor is years behind schedule. The company is struggling to overcome persistent defects, the apparent result of the difficulties of mass-producing the tiny features the new chips require.

After years of improving performance by shrinking circuitry, features on the chips are now approaching the atomic level. And so Intel, and other chipmakers, appear to be bumping up against the laws of physics.

Moore's Law, the famous maxim that predicted exponential growth in computing power at regular intervals, no longer applies. In the face of its manufacturing failures, Intel has given up its two-year, "tick-tock" cycle for introducing new generations of microprocessors.

"That's just not working anymore. That, I think, is passe. And so they're looking for the next big thing," said Christof Teuscher, professor of electrical and computing engineering at Portland State University.

It's exciting, Teuscher said, that academics and chipmakers are beginning to think beyond the boundaries of Moore's Law. But he's skeptical that quantum computing is the answer. There are less far-out concepts, spintronics and nanotechnology among them, that he believes provide a greater chance of success.

Current quantum science is limited to just a few dozen qubits. That's nowhere near the scale required to produce a major advance in computing.

"It's high payoff, high risk," Teuscher said. "If it works, great. It'll be a major payoff. But there's big questions."

'IT'S NOT SCIENCE FICTION'

In fact, there are many quantum doubters who are skeptical the technology will be workable anytime soon.

Quantum computers will require a whole new class of computer programming to craft sophisticated algorithms. And it can take weeks to classify individual qubits and understand their quirks, slowing advances.

Intel's most advanced quantum chip, unveiled earlier this year, has just 49 qubits. A truly productive quantum computer would need millions. The qubits themselves must be made far more durable so they last long enough, before collapsing into a defined state, that they can generate useful information.

Quantum computers make a lot of mistakes. That's inevitable with complex, delicate components. A tiny movement or electrical interference can cause the qubits to lose vital information.

Still, Intel is increasingly confident it has a path forward.

By monitoring "helper" qubits running in parallel to a quantum algorithm, engineers can assess whether their system is losing data - and if it is, they can adjust the process to account for errors and correct them. At extremely low temperatures, like the ones achieved at Intel's Hillsboro lab, qubits hold their states longer and produce fewer errors.

Intel says its existing manufacturing technology is helping enable new advances, while using new materials and purified silicon has helped prolong the duration qubits last before collapsing thousands of times over.

"It looks much more concrete to me and I'm hoping that within a timescale of 10 years that we can begin thinking of solving problems that otherwise cannot be solved," said Lieven Vandersypen, a professor who leads advanced quantum research at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

When Intel began its quantum research, it lacked the expertise and the equipment to do the work on its own. So five years ago it looked into a dozen physics departments across the globe and decided to seek a partnership with Vandersypen and his colleagues in Delft.

As a teenager reading popular books about science, Vandersypen learned about quantum computing and was floored. In his mind, the uncertainty of quantum mechanics touched on deep, philosophical questions around determinism and deep questions about the underlying nature of the world and reality.

"I was really blown away, to the point where I actually couldn't sleep at night," Vandersypen said.

His quantum studies began in 1997 and took him to Stanford, IBM and then back to the Netherlands.

"For the first 15 years or so, I saw our field as super interesting, super exciting with a potential for application at some distant time in the future," Vandersypen said. "My view of the future of the field has really changed in the last five years."

Quantum computers won't sit on your desktop or inside the phone in your pocket. Not anytime soon, at least. The qubits are too fragile, the conditions in which they operate too exacting.

That doesn't mean quantum computing won't affect everyday life. New materials they enable could produce far more efficient electrical systems, super batteries that could store enormous quantities of electricity - enough, perhaps, that solar power could be far more practical, even for nighttime energy use.

"It's good for people to know it's not science fiction. It's not work that's happening only on paper," Vandersypen said. "We do experiments and we see that it works. The basic physics is down."

-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699