Experiment opens door for millions of qubits on one chip
Researchers from the University of Basel and the NCCR SPIN have achieved the first controllable interaction between two hole spin qubits in a conventional silicon transistor. The breakthrough opens up the possibility of integrating millions of these qubits on a single chip using mature manufacturing processes.
The race to build a practical quantum computer is well underway. Researchers around the world are working on a huge variety of qubit technologies. So far, there is no consensus on what type of qubit is most suitable for maximizing the potential of quantum information science.
Qubits are the foundation of a quantum computer: they handle the processing, transfer and storage of data. To work correctly, they have to both reliably store and rapidly process information. The basis for rapid information processing is stable and fast interactions between a large number of qubits whose states can be reliably controlled from the outside.
For a quantum computer to be practical, millions of qubits must be accommodated on a single chip. The most advanced quantum computers today have only a few hundred qubits, meaning they can only perform calculations that are already possible (and often more efficient) on conventional computers..
