"You have received your letter and attached materials recently, and I agree with what you said that China should unify and organize the whole country to overcome the technical problems of quantum information systems."
On the morning of December 4, Guo Guangcan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, officially donated a reply letter handwritten by Qian Xuesen to the Institute of Culture and Museum of the University of Science and Technology of China, and a past about China's quantum computing began.
In the letter, Qian Xuesen, a well-known Chinese scientist, discussed the issue of quantum information technology. Although Qian Xuesen was more than 80 years old at the time, the hundreds of words in the handwritten letter were still strong and powerful.
Guo Guangcan, a 79-year-old academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "That letter was an important exhortation when we set out."
Qian Xuesen's handwritten reply:
"This matter concerns the country's major affairs"
Back in the 1990s, 23 years ago, China's quantum science lagged behind the international frontier by more than 20 years.
However, Guo Guangcan predicts that quantum information will definitely become a field of fierce competition among countries in the future. Despite the opposition of many, he chose this path without hesitation.
At that time, how to expand the influence of the quantum field in China was an urgent problem that needed to be solved. In 1998, Guo Guangcan planned to organize the Xiangshan Science Conference on Quantum Information. In the meantime, he came up with a bold idea: find the best scientist in the country to be the president of the conference, and the influence will be there.
So Guo Guangcan boldly wrote a letter to Qian Xuesen, a famous Chinese scientist. To Guo Guangcan's surprise, Qian Xuesen quickly replied.
Unfortunately, due to the 87-year-old age and "limited mobility", Qian Xuesen "can no longer participate in any meetings". In this regard, Guo Guangcan was somewhat apologetic, "If I had known about Elder Qian's physical condition, I would not have issued such an invitation."
After more than twenty years, Guo Guangcan is still impressed when recalling the details of the letter. Straight to the point, Qian Xuesen said in the letter: "I agree with what you said about the need to unify the national forces to overcome the technical problems of quantum information systems. This matter concerns the country. ”
Qian Xuesen's reply and Elder Qian's attitude towards quantum information research made Guo Guangcan doubly encouraged.
Subsequently, Guo Guangcan found the same recipient of the "Two Bombs and One Star Meritorious Medal", the famous scientist Academician Wang Daheng, "he readily agreed, saying that Chinese must have its own voice in the field of quantum information." ”
Cultivate a local "quantum team"
With the support and encouragement of the older generation of scientists, Guo Guangcan established the Open Laboratory of Quantum Communication and Quantum Computing at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1999. In 2001, the laboratory was officially approved by the Chinese Academy of Sciences as the Key Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the full name is "Key Laboratory of Quantum Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences", becoming the first provincial and ministerial key laboratory in the field of quantum information in China.
In the same year, Guo Guangcan also applied for the first "973" project in the field of quantum information in China, and served as the chief scientist, and more than 50 scientists from more than ten important research institutes and famous universities in China participated in the research of the project.
In 2003, Professor Guo Guangcan was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and won the "He Liang He Li" award.
Since then, Guo Guangcan has led the team to make a series of world-class original innovative scientific research achievements in the fields of quantum computing and quantum secure communications, and has also cultivated a scientific research team with pioneering and innovative capabilities.
In 2017, with the technology originating from the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guo Guangcan's "apprentices" set up a leading domestic quantum computing leading enterprise "Origin Quantum" in Hefei High-tech Zone, and began to industrialize quantum computing, committed to "making quantum computers go out of the laboratory and truly serve human society".
How far ahead of quantum computing is China
From scratch, from yes to excellent, with the efforts of generations of scientists, China's quantum computing field has overtaken in curves, and the good news continues to brush the screen!
Not long ago, the pan jianwei team of the University of Science and Technology of China introduced in the paper that after a series of improvements, the speed of the optical quantum computer "Jiuzhang-2" to deal with specific problems is hundreds of millions of billions of times faster than that of supercomputers, and the calculation speed of the superconducting quantum computer "Zuchong-2" on the quantum random line sampling problem is also 10 million times faster than that of the fastest supercomputer.
This means that China has become the only country in the world to reach the milestone of "quantum computing superiority" in two physical systems.
"Zuchong-2" superconducting quantum computer equipment
Experts from the cooperative research and development unit Guodun Quantum said that the relevant computers have adopted new concepts, new technologies and new processes, and the team that has achieved this dazzling result is also extremely young. Among the authors of the quantum computer paper, there are many young researchers born in 1996 and 1997, and the youngest one was born in 1999, "most of the team is post-95 years old."
Schematic diagram of the "Zuchong-2" chip from the University of Science and Technology of China
Today, the context of the "major national events" mentioned in Qian Xuesen's letter and the hearts and minds of generations of scientists has become clearer.
In particular, Academician Guo Guangcan is pleased that "I see young people growing, becoming talents and flourishing in the field of quantum information, and I believe that they can create a better future for quantum information."
They studied hard and struggled hard,
Make the impossible possible.
now
Young scientific and technological workers bravely shoulder heavy burdens,
Show the power of youth in scientific and technological self-improvement.
Greetings to Chinese researchers!
Source: China Youth Daily
Editor: Huang Lujie