in a march article in nature, engineers at the google quantum ai (artificial intelligence) laboratory announced plans to produce the first viable quantum computers within the next five years, focusing on the areas of quantum simulation, quantum-assisted optimization, and quantum sampling.

the smaller of these chips, a 6-mm square, holds 6 qubits. (erik lucero)

the article does not ignore the obvious technical hurdles that still need to be leapt before quantum computing becomes a commercial product, most notably the lack of quantum hardware, but it also believes that there is an inevitable end point – “quantum supremacy”.

google engineers believe that there will come a point soon when quantum computers outperform traditional computers and will provide a boost to the growing field of ai.

as can be expected, there have been a number of reactions to the news that google was directing resources to produce commercial quantum computers.

as wired noted, google is not alone in this path. ibm also made an announcement about its plans for reaching the quantum computing threshold in the next few years even if there is no practical quantum computer to speak of at this point in time.

the wired article continued, “both google and ibm now say they will offer access to true quantum computing over the internet (call it quantum cloud computing)… in the short-term, researchers believe quantum machines cannot only accelerate the progress of machine learning but significantly improve the development of new medications, streamline our financial markets, and even solve traffic problems.”

the mit technology review looked at google’s new chips that manipulate data through quantum physics and google is expecting to be completed by the end of the year.

“quantum chips represent digital bits of data using qubits,” the article explained, “devices that can shortcut through some tough calculations by exploiting the counterintuitive physics of quantum mechanics. researchers have so far demonstrated quantum computing with only small groups of qubits, though. google has released results from a chip that has nine qubits arranged in a line, but [it] says [it will] need a grid of 49 qubits for his quantum supremacy experiment.”

currently, google has a six-qubit chip that demonstrates the potential of nestling qubits side-by-side as they would be in a larger device. it also demonstrated the manufacturing techniques that would go into creating a true quantum computer.

mit technology review explained, “the six-qubit chip is also a test of a manufacturing method in which the qubits and the conventional wiring that controls them are made on separate chips later “bump bonded” together. that approach, a major focus of google’s team since it was established just over two years ago, is intended to eliminate the extra control lines needed in a larger chip, which can interfere with how qubits function.”

ieee spectrum recently joined the conversation about google’s desire for quantum computing this year and noted that google engineers will still be far from the type of computing that has been theorized about the quantum-scale even with a 49-quibit design.

“there will be no such extra infrastructure in this 49-qubit system, which means a different computation must be performed to establish supremacy,” the article said. “to demonstrate the chip’s superiority over conventional computers, the google team will execute operations on the array that will cause it to evolve chaotically and produce what looks like a random output.”

the article continued, “google recently performed a dry run of the approach on a 9-by-1 array of qubits and tested out some fabrication technology on a 2-by-3 array. scaling up the number of qubits will happen in stages.”