Researchers Partnering on ‘Noise-Cancelling Headphones’ for Quantum Computers

(UNSW) A team of scientists and engineers at UNSW Sydney, Griffith University and University of Technology Sydney, in partnership with seven leading US institutions, has launched a new project to develop an unprecedented capability in quantum computing: a “noise-cancelling headphone” for quantum computers, set to increase the stability of fragile quantum building blocks, or qubits.
Quantum computers encode information in delicate superposition states of quantum bits, or ‘qubits’. There, the information can be processed with exponentially more computational power than in a classical computer, but it is also highly susceptible to any kind of environmental noise. “To build a reliable quantum computer, we must shield the quantum bits from that noise in the environment,” Professor Howard Wiseman, Director of the Centre for Quantum Dynamics at Griffith University.
The team is building the capacity to cancel noise around a ‘data qubit’ by detecting the noise on a ‘spectator qubit’ in its vicinity, and using advanced machine learning algorithms to adapt the controls that encode information in the data qubit.