Andreas Wallraff receives one of the 2020 Helmholtz International Fellow Awards of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. The award serves also to expand an existing cooperation with scientists at the Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany).
Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that today’s computers cannot solve in a reasonable amount of time. However, their computations are not yet reliable, meaning that algorithms with many operations cannot be executed without significant errors. This article presents a method to reduce these errors by reducing the total number of operations required to execute a quantum optimization algorithm. This work thereby offers an approach to solving more complex problems on existing and near-term quantum computers.
The optimization algorithm considered in this work uses an Ising-type interaction between pairs of qubits. In prior work, this interaction was typically realized with a long sequence of standard quantum gates. By developing a gate that directly realizes the desired interaction, this work presents a hardware-efficient implementation that reduces the total number of gates executed on the quantum computer. This reduction in the number of gates results in a lower number of errors and, therefore, improves the overall performance of the algorithm.
The results demonstrate that using hardware-efficient gates is a key component in extending the impact of near-term quantum computers. In the future, the development of related types of hardware-efficient gates might enable quantum computers to tackle an even broader range of problems.
In our lab, we have realized the first quantum coherent communication protocol operated between superconducting quantum circuits located in two cryogenic systems separated by a distance of 5 meters.
The 2020 APS March Meeting was cancelled due to health concerns relating to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The presentations of the Quantum Device Lab group members Simon Storz, Christian Kraglund Andresen, Ants Remm and Johannes Herrman were uploaded on the Virtual March Meeting platform.
The Swiss Federal Councilor Parmelin announced the launching of 6 new National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR), including the NCCR "Spin" in which our group is involved.
Under the leadership of Prof. Richard Warburton, University of Basel, the NCCR "SPIN" aims to make a major contribution to the development of quantum computers and create the basis for a new information-processing technology. The objective is to develop small, fast, scalable silicon-based qubits. It will also generate important findings on software and algorithm development, error correction and the architecture of future quantum computers.
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) supports the NCCR "SPIN" with CHF 17 million in the first funding phase from 2020 to 2023.