NSTU researchers have developed and tested the device for multichannel low-noise power supply which can be used to set the operating mode in multi-qubit systems and in quantum computers. Until now, to develop qubits and quantum computers Russian researchers used expensive foreign-made low-noise power supplies. Now the scientists engaged into strategically important research have the possibility to use home-made device.
All electronic components of electric power supply have the specific level of ‘noise’, which is a stochastic phenomenon changing the current characteristics. In a standard computer or other electronic devises it is of no importance because these devices are not sensitive to noise activated current fluctuations. But in a quantum computer, qubits as core elements of the computing device are very sensitive to current fluctuations influencing the operating mode. The computer could understand the slightest ‘noise’ as a change of processed information and give out the incorrect resulting data. That is why, we cannot use traditional power supply to set the operating mode of a quantum computer,’ says Aleksey Vostretsov, the NSTU Vice-rector on Research.
According to A. Vostretsov, NSTU engineers managed to develop the multichannel power supply rivaling and even surpassing in some parameters foreign-made analogues.
‘The country that is the first to produce the quantum system of data processing will be in advantageous position towards other countries. Within minutes the quantum computer will be able to perform such amount of calculations which would take years for the present-day computers to process. It might impose threat on state security systems based on ciphering data including governmental and military channels of communication. The quantum computer is a matter of national security, that is why all its components must homemade,’ explains A. Vostretsov. Now we are considering the possibility to give some devices to the collaboration of Russian researcher developing quantum systems of information processing.
The device has been developed at the Laboratory of quantum cryogenic electronics of NSTU, where it became possible to achieve the temperature approximating absolute zero (-273°C). It is the temperature that provides the conditions for superconductivity underlying the process of quantum bit operation with energy level within microwave frequency band.
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The quantum computer differs from the traditional computer through operation with qubits instead of bits. Bits are measured in ‘0’ or ‘1’, while qubits with some probability might be both ‘0’ and ‘1’. It can increase the rate of computing. Such computers could solve the problems of optimization, do parallel calculations, and they are very promising in terms of developing AI and big data. The quantum computers are able to solve many problems on data deciphering. But at present, the quantum computers solve only limited range of problems because of the limited number of quantum mathematical algorithms and the short ‘life time’ of a qubit – some microseconds to fulfill the task during cryogenic condition. All over the world, the physicists are in search of new materials able to prolong the ‘life’ of qubits.