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Seven Alternative Designs to Quantum Computing Platform – The Race by IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Others

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Business Bets on a Quantum Leap

quantum computer at IonQ, an Alphabet-backed startup

A version of this article appears in the June 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “The Race for Quantum Domination.”

Medicine

One day, your health may depend on a quantum leap.

• Pharmaceutical giant Biogen teamed up with consultancy Accenture and startup 1QBit on a quantum computing experiment in 2017 aimed at molecular modeling, one of the more complex disciplines in medicine. The goal: finding candidate drugs to treat neurodegenerative diseases.
• Microsoft is collaborating with Case Western Reserve University to improve the accuracy of MRI machines, which help detect cancer, using so-called quantum-inspired algorithms.

7 ways to win the quantum race

There are multiple ways that quantum computing could work.

Here’s a guide to which companies are backing which tech.

Superconducting uses an electrical current, flowing through special semiconductor chips cooled to near absolute zero, to produce computational “qubits.” Google, IBM, and Intel are pursuing this approach, which has so far been the front-runner.

Ion trap relies on charged atoms that are manipulated by lasers in a vacuum, which helps to reduce noisy interference that can contribute to errors. Industrial giant Honeywell is betting on this technique. So is IonQ, a startup with backing from Alphabet.

Neutral Atom Similar to the ion-trap method, except it uses, you guessed it, neutral atoms. Physicist Mikhail Lukin’s lab at Harvard is a pioneer.

Annealing designed to find the lowest-energy (and therefore speediest) solutions to math problems. Canadian firm D-Wave has sold multimillion-dollar machines based on the idea to Google and NASA. They’re fast, but skeptics question whether they qualify as “quantum.”

Silicon spin uses single electrons trapped in transistors. Intel is hedging its bets between the more mature superconducting qubits and this younger, equally semiconductor-friendly method.

Topological uses exotic, highly stable quasi-particles called “anyons.” Microsoft deems this unproven moonshot as the best candidate in the long run, though the company has yet to produce a single one.

Photonics uses light particles sent through special silicon chips. The particles interact with one another very little (good), but can scatter and disappear (bad). Three-year-old stealth startup Psi Quantum is tinkering away on this idea.

SOURCE

http://fortune.com/longform/business-quantum-computing/

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