[ExI] Topological Quantum Computers

[John Clark]

*The July 15, 2026 issue of the journal Nature had the most interesting
paper I've seen in the last several years about quantum computing: *


*Universal gates from braiding and fusing anyons on quantum hardware
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10709-y>*

*It's about topological quantum computers involving
non-Abelian pseudoparticles, if they exist you could build a quantum
computer that produced FAR fewer errors than a conventional quantum
computer. This paper does not claim to have proven they exist in our real
physical universe, however from the point of view of an engineer trying to
make an improved quantum computer that might not matter very much because
they did prove that they can make non-Abelian pseudoparticles in a
simulated virtual world and perform low error quantum calculations in that
world. And there is no difference between a simulated calculation and a
"real" calculation. *

*Of course it would be preferable if real physical non-Abelian
pseudoparticles did exist in the real world because it takes some
computational horsepower to create that virtual world, and maybe they do
exist, but if not then this is an alternative. There is every reason to
believe that algorithms will improve allowing conventional computer
hardware to efficiently emulate that virtual world. The big question is,
how much conventional hardware is needed to create and maintain that
virtual world. If the overhead can be made modest (and the algorithms are
improving) then whether non-Abelian  pseudoparticles are "natural" or not
becomes unimportant, at least to an engineer trying to build a quantum
computer, although a physicist interested in discovering the nature of
physical reality might feel differently.*
John K Clark    See what's on my list at  Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
ixa
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