(TheRegister) Startup PsiQuantum has a rough vision of what its one-million-qubit quantum computer could look like.m”It’s going to look like a big concrete building with a whole bunch of modules,” Pete Shadbolt, chief scientific officer.
PsiQuantum is thus betting that silicon photonics will play a central role in its data-center-sized quantum computer.
“When you think of quantum computing, you think of milli-kelvin temperatures, atoms flying around in space, atomic-scale fabrication, mad materials, science-fiction stuff. We need to repurpose something that’s already manufacturable,” Shadbolt said.
The system will be based on components made using today’s manufacturing techniques, and won’t require massive cooling refrigerators, we’re told. “If you look at it, as a casual observer, it’s like a big industrial facility with some steam coming off the top,” Shadbolt said.
The big question is whether the ambitious system will ever see the light of day. While the biz couldn’t provide a specific date on when the system will land, it hopes the silicon photonics approach will expedite the commercialization.
PsiQuantum’s road to an error-corrected quantum computer specifically involves silicon photonic modulators, optical networking fiber, and other components.
“The idea is we’ll take the same manufacturing processes that we used to make transistors. Instead, we’ll make optical waveguides. And we’ll put light inside the chip. And then we can manipulate that light with a toolbox of components,” Shadbolt said.
“At the physical level, it’s really single photons propagating in the same way that you’d find in a data center.”
It’s been shown that photon beam splitters can be used to build a universal quantum computing system.
PsiQuantum envisions a datacenter-sized quantum computer
