Duke University and IonQ have developed new qubit gates that will significantly improve computational efficiency

The Paper's reporter Wang Huirong

On February 10, 2018, the Duke University Quantum Center (DQC) and IonQ, a U.S. quantum computing startup, announced the development of a new qubit gate. The results of the study were published in arXiv.

The new qubit gates use an innovative way to run on multiple connected qubits at the same time and only run on IonQ and Duke's quantum systems. This new method of quantum computing operation will have the potential to accelerate several key quantum computing techniques and help extend quantum algorithms.

Schematic of a quantum processor capturing ions, image from IonQ

Qubit gates are used in many common quantum computing. The new qubit gate in this study can synchronize multiple qubit gates at a time. For example, a multiqu-qubit Toffoli gate flips a selected qubit if and only if all other qubits are in a particular state. Unlike standard double qubit gates, multi-qubit Toffoli gates can act on multiple qubits simultaneously, enabling more efficient operation.

This discovery could lead to significant efficiency gains in solving basic quantum computing, such as The Grover search algorithm, variational quantum eigenvalue solvers (VQEs), and arithmetic operations such as addition and multiplication. These algorithms are widely used in quantum computing and are a key component of the quantum computer industry.

Or Katz, Marko Cetina, professor, and IonQ co-founder Christopher Monroe of Duke University conducted the study. In the future, the new qubit gate will be integrated into IonQ's quantum computing operating system for public use.

"Other quantum computing architectures, even other ion trap quantum computers, cannot take advantage of this new multi-qubit gate," Monroe says, "because the IonQ quantum computer has unique full connectivity and a wide communication bus that allows all qubits to act simultaneously." ”

Peter Chapman, president of IonQ, believes that this technology enhances his company's unique ability to develop quantum computing applications. Last December, the company announced new barium qubit technology, as well as the first reconfigurable multicore quantum architecture and evaporative glass ion trap technology, which are expected to expand the qubit scale of the IonQ quantum computer.

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