"CES 2018: Intel's 49-Qubit Chip Shoots for Quantum Supremacy"

From IEEE Spectrum:

Intel has passed a key milestone while running alongside Google and IBM in the marathon to build quantum computing systems. The tech giant has unveiled a superconducting quantum test chip with 49 qubits: enough qubits to possibly enable quantum computing that begins to exceed the practical limits of modern classical computers.

Intel’s announcement about the design and fabrication of its new 49-qubit superconducting quantum chip, code-named Tangle Lake, came during a keynote speech by Brian Krzanich, Intel's CEO, during 2018 CES, an annual consumer electronics tradeshow in Las Vegas. It’s a milestone that Google and IBM researchers have also been targeting because it could usher in the moment of so-called “quantum supremacy,” when quantum computing can outperform classical computing.

But Michael Mayberry, corporate vice president and managing director of Intel Labs, chose to describe quantum supremacy in different terms. “Around 50 qubits is an interesting place from a scientific point of view, because you’ve reached the point where you can’t completely predict or simulate the quantum behavior of the chip,” he says.

This newest announcement puts Intel in good company as far as the quantum computing marathon goes. IBM researchers announced that they had built a 50-qubit quantum chip prototype in November 2017. Similarly, Google previously talked about its ambitions to achieve a 49-qubit superconducting quantum chip before the end of last year.

It’s still going to be a long road before anyone will realize the commercial promise of quantum computing, which leverages the idea of quantum bits (qubits) that can represent more than one information state at the same time. Intel’s roadmap suggests researchers could achieve 1,000-qubit systems within 5 to 7 years. That sounds like a lot until you realize that many experts believe quantum computers will need at least one million qubits to become useful from a commercial standpoint.

But practical quantum computing also requires much more than ever-larger arrays of qubits. One important step involves implementing “surface code” error correction that can detect and correct for disruptions in the fragile quantum states of individual qubits. Another step involves figuring out how to map software algorithms to the quantum computing hardware. A third crucial issue involves engineering the local electronics layout necessary to control the individual qubits and read out the quantum computing results....MORE