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<p><span lang="en-US">How important is quantum computing in regards to developing true AGI?<br></span></p><p><span lang="en-US">"Engineering giant Honeywell burst into the quantum <a href="https://singularityhub.com/tag/computing/">computing</a> race out of left field last year. Now the company has provided the first concrete details of how </span><span lang="en-GB">its</span><span lang="en-US"> device works in a</span><span lang="en-GB"> peer-reviewed</span> <span lang="en-GB">journal</span><span lang="en-US">.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-US">Unlike its main rivals Google and IBM, who rely on superconducting qubits, Honeywell is using trapped</span><span lang="en-US"> ions to power its device.</span><span lang="en-GB"> The technology has a long pedigree—</span><span lang="en-GB">most
of the earliest quantum computing experiments relied on this
approach—but difficulties in scaling devices beyond a few qubits saw it
eclipsed by alternatives.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">The technique relies on encoding information in
the quantum states of charged particles called ions, which are suspended
in a vacuum using electromagnetic fields. These qubits have a number of
advantages over their superconducting cousins: they maintain their
quantum states far longer, they’re less error-prone, and </span><span lang="en-GB">they </span><span lang="en-GB">can easily interact with many qubit</span><span lang="en-GB">s</span><span lang="en-GB"> rather than only their closest neighbors.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">But there are only so many ions one can confine to
a single trap, which puts an upper limit on how big conventional
devices could be. And while they can interact with many qubits, they do
so considerably slower than superconducting </span><span lang="en-GB">devices</span><span lang="en-GB">.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">Last March, Honeywell burst onto the quantum computing scene by </span><a href="https://www.honeywell.com/us/en/press/2020/03/honeywell-achieves-breakthrough-that-will-enable-the-worlds-most-powerful-quantum-computer"><span lang="en-GB">claiming to have solved these problems</span></a><span lang="en-GB"> and created the most powerful quantum computer to date. Now they’ve finally lifted the lid on exactly how they did that in a</span> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03318-4"><span lang="en-GB">paper published in</span> <em><span lang="en-GB">Nature</span></em></a><em><span lang="en-GB">.</span></em></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">The company’s machine builds on a design </span><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/quantum-computer-based-on-shuttling-ions-is-built-by-honeywell/"><span lang="en-GB">first proposed in 2002</span></a><span lang="en-GB">, which solves many of the limitations of the technology by shuttling ions around. The device reported in </span><em><span lang="en-GB">Nature</span></em><span lang="en-GB"> features up to six</span><span lang="en-GB"> qubits made of ytterbium-171 atoms arranged in a line.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">However, unlike in more conventional trapped-ion
computers, they aren’t held in place using a single static electric
field. The device’s 198 electrodes can be controlled independently to
dynamically vary the field, which allows the qubits to be shifted up and
down to interact with each other.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">This makes it possible for all the qubits to
interact, which has major implications for the complexity of the
algorithms the machine can implement. The importance of this kind of
connectivity was actually first brought to the fore by Honeywell’s
rival, IBM, when it </span><a href="https://singularityhub.com/2019/03/13/ibm-introduces-quantum-volume-to-track-progress-towards-the-quantum-age/"><span lang="en-GB">introduced a measure called quantum volume</span></a><span lang="en-GB"> to help track progress in the field.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">Simply adding qubits to your device is only </span><span lang="en-GB">helpful</span><span lang="en-GB">
if they are not too error-prone and can actually do useful work. So IBM
researchers suggested that the true test of a quantum computer is the
size of the most complicated circuit a device can implement to a certain
standard of reliability.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">The resulting metric is called quantum volume, and
last year IBM achieved a volume of 64 on its 27-qubit processor. But
Honeywell shows in the paper that it can match that figure using just
six qubits thanks to the device’s much greater connectivity, </span><span lang="en-GB">and</span><span lang="en-GB"> also its low error rates.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">Since the research was carried out, the company has brought the </span><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/commercial-iontrap-quantum-computers-showing-rapid-scaleup"><span lang="en-GB">number of qubits in its device up to </span><span lang="en-GB">10</span></a><span lang="en-GB">,
which it says can now achieve a quantum volume of 512, though the
results have yet to be peer-reviewed. The company also outlined how it
plans to scale its set up to far larger numbers of qubits.</span></p>
<p><span lang="en-GB">Its current linear system has capacity for up to
40 qubits, but the company is already testing a successor device that
looks more like a race track and could hold considerably more. The next
stage will be to create a processor featuring a grid of traps and then
integrating many of these grids together."</span></p>
</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://singularityhub.com/2021/04/19/honeywell-just-released-details-about-how-its-quantum-computer-works/">https://singularityhub.com/2021/04/19/honeywell-just-released-details-about-how-its-quantum-computer-works/</a></div></div>