Introduction to commercial quantum computers

2007/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Diseinua
• Teknologia
• Hardwarea

Canadian company D-Wave Systems has announced the creation of the first functional quantum computer. It is 100 times slower than conventional computers, but they say that quantum computers are only at the beginning of their development.

The main difference between quantum computers and conventional computers is how information is processed. Conventional processes in bits that can be 0 or 1. Quantum, rather than bit, uses qubits. Qubits can have values 0, 1 or at the same time 0 and 1.

Thanks to this particularity, quantum computers can perform several functions at once, unlike conventional computers. But they also have the drawback that every qubit and the other qubits around them interact with each other, allowing them to easily lose their information. It is very difficult to control the operation of a computer with many qubits. What they have done has 16 qubit.