WACQT - Wallenberg Centre for Quantum Technology Newsletter #13, 2024 |
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Dear
reader,
When you
read this, WACQT has been running for more than six years, that is, we have
come halfway in this 12-year program. A lot of things have happened during the
past six years and during the spring we will summarize this progress in WACQT’s
half time report which is now in preparation.
The content
of this newsletter describes the more recent progress and news since the
previous newsletter was published last fall. Important things you can read
about here include scientific progress, and news regarding the status of the
testbed and an agreement with IBM, a visit to WACQT by the minister of defence
Pål Jonson, the newly established Finnish Quantum Flagship, and the Swedish
signing of the Quantum Pact.
Per
Delsing, director of WACQT
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New agreement gives
Swedish academia and industry unique access to even larger quantum computers
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Through funding
from Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Swedish academia and industry will
have the opportunity to learn how to run quantum algorithms in two steps.
Development and optimization will first be carried out on the quantum computing
test bed at Chalmers. Thanks to a new agreement between WACQT and IBM, problem
solving on a larger scale is then made possible on IBM's quantum systems and
resources over the cloud.
Read more | | | | |
The team that assembles the quantum computer:
Stefan Hill, Miroslav Dobsicek, Paul Häyhänen, Eleftherios Moschandreou, Pontus Vikstål, Olga Yuzefovych, Abdullah-Al Amin | The quantum computing
testbed takes shape
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The setting
up of Quantum Testbeds, which will provide access to the WACQT quantum computer
as well as to a quantum technology laboratory equipment for WACQT partners and
Swedish companies, is in progress. The premises, located at Chalmers in the
building of the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, have now been
renovated and two cryostats are installed. Five people have been employed, and
more recruitments are in progress.
“It is an
exciting new chapter for Chalmers Next Labs and the WACQT project to open this
quantum technology service for the public. We are all rooting for its
success," says Miroslav Dobsicek, head.
Read more about the testbed | | | | | New film about
WACQT and quantum technology
| | | | | Giovanna Tancredi shows the quantum processor to the Minister for Defence. | Sweden’s
Minister for Defence, Pål Jonson, came to Chalmers in October and paid a visit
to WACQT and the quantum computing effort.
“It's
exceptionally interesting and impressive work. Having this kind of activity
here is a strategic asset for us, particularly in our relationships with key
partner nations,” says Pål Jonson.
He also
envisions applications for quantum technology in future defence and security
work: “It opens up significant new possibilities.”
A group of
senior researchers and drug developers from AstraZeneca's oral product
development department visited WACQT at Chalmers to hear more about quantum
technology's benefits in the field of drug development – and of course to look
at the quantum computer.
“Quantum
computing is clearly one of the major digital revolutions of our lifetime, and
one that we expect to play a powerful role in the future for applications like
ours. Given the proximity of WACQT to AstraZeneca, its prominence, and the
expected future potential of quantum computing, we were excited to take the
opportunity to find out more about the current state of the art,” says Adrian
Clark, Strategy & Operations Director, Oral Product Development at
AstraZeneca. Read more about AstraZeneca’s visit
In
November, WACQT was visited by a delegation of members of the Wallenberg family
and representatives from the centre’s main funder, Knut and Alice Wallenberg
Foundation (KAW). The delegation included Jacob Wallenberg, member of KAW, Sara
Mazur, deputy executive member of KAW, and Martina Wallenberg, Head of Open
Banking at SEB. During the visit, the group received a report on the centre’s
development in terms of technological advances, activities, and industrial
collaborations, as well as a tour of the quantum computer laboratory. | | | | | Quantum information
pioneer visited Lund and Gothenburg
In 2022, Alain
Aspect was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics together with John Clauser and
Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the
violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. On February 6 and 7 he visited Lund and Chalmers, respectively, and gave a longer and more detailed version of his Nobel lecture. He also met and spoke to many WACQT people, both in Lund and at Chalmers.
“Above all, this type of visit provides a lot of inspiration, both to researchers, PhD students, and students,” says Stefan Kröll, WACQT principal investigator and professor of atomic physics at Lund University.
| | | | | | | | | Quantum technology survey
in the Parliament
In October,
WACQT director Per Delsing visited the Swedish Parliament to give a survey of
quantum technology including WACQT and applications. The event was arranged by the
Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and Rifo, a forum for
facilitating dialogue between members of parliament and researchers. Slightly more than 20 members of
parliament attended.
”It is
part of our mission to raise the level of competence in quantum technology in Sweden,”
says Per Delsing. | Demonstration of universal
control in continuous-variable quantum computing |
The
mainstream approach to quantum computing is to use quantum systems with two
different quantum states as qubits. But more robust qubits and easier
error-handling could be achieved if quantum information instead is encoded into
a large number of physical quantum states in linear oscillators. This approach
is called continuous-variable (CV) quantum computing.
However,
one needs to introduce a so-called nonlinearity to be able to operate a
continuous-variable quantum computer, which has been a challenge in platforms
based on photons. Superconducting platforms offer access to strong
nonlinearities but have been limited by an always-on static, so-called Kerr
nonlinearity. But now, a team at Chalmers has realized a planar superconducting
architecture terminated by a superconducting nonlinear asymmetric inductive
element (SNAIL) in which the nonlinearities only manifest themselves when
driven with microwave pulses.
“Our community has often tried
to keep nonlinear circuit elements away from the quantum oscillators, not to scramble the
fragile quantum states. In this work, we have challenged this paradigm by
embedding a nonlinear element at the heart of the oscillator, showing that we
can limit the scrambling while getting access to stronger, fast-tunable nonlinearities,”
says Simone Gasparinetti who supervised the work.
The team
has been able to demonstrate universal control of the quantum states and has
implemented fast universal quantum gates. The work has been accepted for
publication in Nature Communications.
“A
thrilling long-term outlook for our work is to use the strong nonlinearities in
superconducting circuits to generate non-classical resources, which could be
upconverted to optical frequencies where they can be used for scalable quantum
computing” says Axel Eriksson, first author of the study.
Read more
in the pre-print
Read more
about continuous-variable quantum computing in the theme-article from WACQT Newsletter
#5 | | | | |
Towards interconnecting
quantum computers using light and sound on a chip
| Interconnecting
remote quantum computers may accelerate the development of quantum
technologies. But the road there is paved with several challenges. Now a
research team at Chalmers made progress towards solving a central problem in
the area – and thus taken a step closer to the possibility of interconnecting
superconducting quantum computers using light.
Read more
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Vaishali
Adya came to KTH as a researcher in December 2021 and was appointed assistant
professor in November 2023. She works predominantly on squeezed light
generation in waveguide systems and also on the development and
characterisation of integrated squeezed light sources for gravitational-wave
detection, biosensing, and quantum communication.
| | | | | | | | | Lecture notes on quantum
computing are now freely available
The lecture
notes from the master’s course Quantum Computing at Chalmers, developed
in WACQT by Giulia Ferrini and Anton Frisk Kockum with contributions from
several other persons, have been made freely available on Arxiv.
“We wrote
these notes to cover many recent developments in the field and make them
accessible to students. After four years of refining the course and the notes,
we are now finally making them public. We hope that the lecture notes will be
of use for many who want to learn about quantum computing,” says Anton Frisk
Kockum.
Lecture notes on quantum computing | Silvia Muceli, Emma Minarelli, and Julia Järlebark | Mentoring to break down
gender barriers in academia
| In a
male-dominated research environment, it can be difficult to find female role
models, especially in senior positions. This is what the WISE-WACQT mentoring
programme at Chalmers wants to address. For over three years, the programme has
brought junior and senior researchers together in empowering and inspiring
meetings.
“We have to
do our best not to lose women along the way,” says Silvia Muceli, one of the
organisers.
Read more | | | | | Quantum autumn school
In October,
the EuroCC National Competence Centre Sweden, WACQT, and the Nordic/Baltic NordIQuEst
project joined forces to deliver a three-day autumn school covering the
fundamentals of quantum computing. The main target was people from academia and
industry interested in hands-on experience of working with quantum algorithms
for optimization, chemistry, finance, and life science on quantum simulators
and computers. No previous experience with quantum computers was required. The
school gathered over 60 participants, with 40 meeting face-to-face at Chalmers
Lindholmen. One high point was a session where the participants were able to
run algorithms on a 5-qubit quantum processor at VTT in Finland as well as
running measurement operations on 15 qubits on QAL 9000 at Chalmers.
“The
Quantum Autumn School was a great success and shows how WACQT successfully could
work in symbiosis with Nordic and European collaboration projects,” says Göran
Wendin, until recently senior advisor in WACQT.
Read more | Funding of summer
internships
| Thanks to a generous grant from Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg’s foundation, WACQT offers funding for summer internships in quantum technology, each one up to 2.5 month, also this year. The application period closed by the end of January and the management team of WACQT’s graduate school has now evaluated the applications from WACQT researchers who wants to hire summer workers and decided to support 13 summer internships. Read more | | | | | | | | | | |
Logical quantum processor
based on atom arrays.
Suppression of errors is a central
challenge in useful quantum computing. The strategy for error correction is
generally to encode each ‘logical’ qubit across many physical qubits for
redundancy. However, the overhead quickly grows as the number of logical qubits
increases, posing a challenge to large-scale quantum computing.
But now, researchers in the USA report having realized a new type of programmable quantum processor which suffer less from this problem.
| | | | | Their processor is based on arrays of individual neutral atoms trapped by laser light, and the central aspect of it is the control of individual logical qubits as the fundamental units, instead of individual physical qubits. The team has used the processor to demonstrate key ingredients of scalable error correction and quantum information processing with logical qubits and claim that their results herald the advent of early error-corrected quantum computation and chart a path toward large-scale logical processors. “These results are exciting progress towards realising quantum error correction at a larger scale. The team behind the work have an ambitious plan for moving quickly towards useful fault-tolerant quantum computing,” says Anton Frisk Kockum, senior researcher in WACQT. Read more in the scientific publication in Nature | | |
IBM releases the first
1,000-qubit quantum chip. IBM has
unveiled the first quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits, a
superconducting quantum processor chip with 1,121 qubits, according to a news article in Nature.
“The introduction of the IBM Condor device, boasting
1121 qubits on a single chip, marks a significant milestone in the field of
superconducting qubits. This achievement demonstrates that it’s possible to
push the boundaries in terms of on-chip qubit-density and cryogenic hardware,”
says Giovanna Tancredi, one of the leaders of WACQT’s quantum computing effort.
However, simply having more qubits does not
necessarily make a system better, as qubit states are extremely sensitive and error prone. According to the
Nature news article, IBM
will now focus on making more error-resistant systems, rather than larger ones.
“IBM has formally announced its strategic shift towards
the utilization of the 133-qubit Heron device for their future quantum systems,
declaring their intention to now focus on further enhancements to device
performance rather than on increasing the number of qubits on a single chip.
IBM has also unveiled the ‘Quantum System Two’, that has a modular approach to
quantum computing. At the moment, the system incorporates three Heron devices,
resulting in a total of 399 qubits. I am looking forward to seeing the
evolution of this innovative system in the near future,” says Tancredi.
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LIGO enhances precision
across all frequencies. Since 2019,
the gravitational-wave observatory LIGO is using squeezed quantum states – that
is, states that have been manipulated to move uncertainty effects away from the
variable one wants to measure – to enhance the precision in its observations. But
initially, the LIGO team only managed to achieve enhancement at some gravitational
wave frequencies at the cost of lower precision at others. But now, the LIGO
team reports in Physical Review X having achieved squeezing over the entire
range of gravitational frequencies. The new squeezing means that LIGO’s
detectors can probe a 65 percent larger volume of the universe and are expected
to detect about 60 percent more mergers between black holes than before.
“This is a
significant improvement. The work by LIGO is generally the most spectacular
demonstration of squeezing being used in practice,” says Stefan Kröll, one of the
coordinators of research in quantum sensing and communication in WACQT.
Read more at LIGO’s website
Read more in Physical Review X
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Sweden has signed the EU
quantum declaration. Eight EU
countries have now signed the European Declaration on Quantum Technologies:
Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, and Sweden. This
means that they recognise the strategic importance of quantum technologies for
the scientific and industrial competitiveness of the EU and commit to
collaborating on the development of a world-class quantum technology ecosystem
across Europe, with the ultimate goal of making Europe the ‘quantum valley’ of
the world.
“This
declaration is also referred to as the ‘Quantum Pact’. We think it's great that
Sweden is now part of this as one the leading countries in quantum technology
in Europe,” says Per Delsing, director of WACQT.
Read more about the EU quantum
declaration
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| | Finland launches quantum
flagship. The Research Council of Finland
announced in October that it has added the Finnish Quantum Flagship (FQF) to
its flagship programme. It is an eight-year project with a funding of 13
million euros for the first five years. The Finnish quantum flagship unites
dozens of Finnish research institutions, companies, and start-ups, and is
coordinated by Aalto University, located just outside Helsinki. The flagship will
enable collaboration across organizations and disciplines and prepare the
Finnish society for the quantum era, according to its director Peter Liljeroth. “It is very
interesting that Finland now starts a flagship in quantum technology. I look
forward to following how it develops,” says Per Delsing, director of WACQT.
Read more at Aalto University’s
website | | |
Chinese companies Alibaba
and Baidu quit quantum computing research. The
Chinese search engine company Baidu is giving up its quantum computing division
by donating its research facility to Beijing
Academy of Quantum Information Sciences. And in November, the Chinese
e-commerce company Alibaba donated its quantum lab to Zhejiang University. The
reasons behind the two companies’ exits are unclear.
“Both labs
had shown some great progress in quantum computation and were becoming serious
competitors with Western firms. It is true that quantum computing won’t bring
in substantial commercial revenue in the short term, so maybe they want to
focus on AI now. But it might signify a larger shift in Chinese quantum
computer strategy, I don’t know,” says Jonas Bylander, one of the leaders of
WACQT’s quantum computing effort.
Read
more in Physics World
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Writer: Ingela Roos / Editor: Susannah Carlsson
Publisher: Per Delsing, per.delsing@chalmers.se Your email address will under no circumstances be handed to another party, or shared with other recipients. You can at any time choose to unsubscribe via the link below. Subscribe to this newsletter » Unsubscribe
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