(CNET) The new Google Quantum AI campus is in Santa Barbara, California, where Google’s first quantum computing lab already employs dozens of researchers and engineers, Google said at its annual I/O developer conference on Tuesday. A few initial researchers already are working there. Google’s new and larger quantum computing research center will employ hundreds of people to design and build a broadly useful quantum computer by 2029.
“We hope to one day create an error-corrected quantum computer,” said Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent company Alphabet, during a recent Google I/O keynote speech.
Error correction combines many real-world qubits into a single working virtual qubit, called a logical qubit. With Google’s approach, it’ll take about 1,000 physical qubits to make a single logical qubit that can keep track of its data. Then Google expects to need 1,000 logical qubits to get real computing work done. A million physical qubits is a long way from Google’s current quantum computers, which have just dozens.
One priority for the new center is bringing more quantum computer manufacturing work under Google’s control, which, when combined with an increase in the number of quantum computers, should accelerate progress.
Google Plans to Build a Practical Quantum Computer by 2029 at New Center
