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Organisations in the United Kingdom and United States have committed to sharing expertise and capabilities in the blossoming field of quantum information science. This new partnership between the countries will lead to new quantum devices, insights into their performance, ways to harness quantum information and discoveries in fundamental physics.
The new partnership is between the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, hosted by the U.S Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the UK’s National Metrology Institute, NPL and Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL).
Quantum information science seeks to harness the behaviour of quantum mechanics to process information in new ways, develop ultra-sensitive detectors and much more.
Under these new partnerships, researchers will investigate the following: losses of quantum information in quantum computing devices, new systems based on quantum technologies to search for new particles, new quantum algorithms, and the performance and fundamental limits of quantum computers.
“The areas the SQMS Centre focuses on are building high-quality superconducting qubits and looking at ways in which this will scale for both quantum computing and fundamental physics,” said Sir Peter Knight, chair of the U.K. National Quantum Technologies Programme and SQMS Centre advisory board member.
Scientists will use quantum computers to manipulate qubits — the basic building block of information used by quantum computers — to perform calculations that would be practically impossible for classical computers when the machines are fully realised.
“Superconducting qubits can be used as a quantum computing engine, but equally in the other direction for dark matter detection,” said Knight. “Quantum has become a major part of the scientific adventure that everybody wants to participate in, and SQMS is going to be a beacon of getting stuff done. NPL and RHUL researchers are excited to become collaborative SQMS Center partners.”
Quantum devices need to be cooled down to prevent information from being obscured or lost by noise produced by heat. Making devices ultra-cold might lead to better device performance and new insights on how quantum devices behave and operate.
This new partnership will draw on the expertise and experience of NPL and RHUL in this area of research.
“What my group brings to the table is expertise in low-temperature physics into the microkelvin regime,” said John Saunders, a professor at RHUL and SQMS Center advisory board member. “For approximately the last 10 years, we’ve been working on developing new low-temperature platforms and working on cooling down quantum circuits and quantum materials to the lowest possible temperatures. We are very interested in cooling them down to ultra-low temperatures to see how they behave,” said Saunders.
“As NPL’s head of science for quantum technologies, I lead a team of about 100 scientists working on various aspects of computing, sensing, communications, metrology, and materials,” said Alexander Tzalenchuk, the SQMS Center principal investigator for NPL. “In particular, we strive to understand and mitigate noise in superconducting circuits, which affects their “quantumness”. We also work on algorithms and developing technologies that enable scalable quantum computing in the future. This formal collaboration is one of the first examples where the two countries can work together on closely aligned projects, which is enabled by the joint statement.”
This partnership comes at a time when the development of quantum technologies is at the forefront of national and international priorities, with UK Prime Minster Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden recently confirming that “we’re building on our extraordinary shared strengths in cutting-edge future technologies, with joint research collaborations” in areas of strategic importance including quantum “to make sure they are developed safely and responsibly”.
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From left to right: Marius Hegedus, Tobias Lindstrom and Alexander Tzalenchuk stand outside the door to Quantum Computing Lab-3 during their visit to SQMS Center’s headquarters on Fermilab’s campus. Photo: SQMS Center
15 Jun 2023