The quantum age is accelerating.
On January 6, 2023, Beijing Yizhuang, Baidu held a quantum computing roundtable, during the meeting, invited personnel can wear dust-proof suits to enter the laboratory and visit the superconducting quantum computer "Qianzhi" up close.
Different from previous quantum computers, "Qianshi" is a highly integrated industrial-grade superconducting quantum computer that integrates "application, software and hardware". This means that "dry start" is no longer a "bare metal", but can be "used out of the box".
The emergence of "dry beginning" has made quantum computing power out of the laboratory to industrialization and become accessible, and it also marks that China has entered the world's first echelon in quantum computing industrialization.
Author | Chibu
Edit the | Fang Yuan
From imagination to entity
Walking into the lab, the hum of the machine immediately creeping into your ears, followed by a silver-white vertical barrel.
This is the heart of the "dry beginning" of the hundred-measure subcomputer, where the quantum chip is located. The silver-white vertical barrel is the main body of the extremely low temperature test platform, which provides an extremely low temperature vacuum environment close to absolute zero for the quantum chip, and the minimum temperature is less than minus 273.14 degrees Celsius.
The quantum chip used in "Qianshi" is a superconducting quantum chip containing 10 qubits, and the power and efficiency of the chip will be greatly improved in extremely low temperature environments.
Duan Runyao, director of the Institute of Hundred Metric Computing, once described that the calmer you are, the more sober you will be, and the faster you will calculate.
Quantum chips, extremely low temperature test platforms, and microwave electronics equipment make up the hardware platform for quantum computers. But quantum hardware alone is not enough. For a long time, one of the pain points of quantum computing has been the separation between quantum hardware and quantum services. In layman's terms, quantum computing only exists in laboratories, but ordinary users cannot really use it.
In order to make quantum computing power within reach, Baiduzi launched a software platform - Quant Yivo. As the world's first cloud-native quantum computing platform, QIVOLT provides one-stop quantum computing services from quantum applications to quantum hardware, supporting multiple usage modes such as mobile phones, computers, and cloud development.
Users can not only write and submit quantum algorithms or quantum application tasks on their mobile phones and computers, but also access Baidu's own hardware and third-party hardware to obtain quantum computing capabilities.
The bridge between the software platform Quantitaire and quantum computer hardware is the Quantitative. Through the pulse, the quantum logic gate can be compiled into microwave pulse signal instructions that can be recognized by the hardware.
In specific application fields, Baiduzi launched the quantum machine learning platform "Measuring Oar", which has achieved breakthroughs in transportation/manufacturing, artificial intelligence, chemical/pharmaceutical, financial technology and other fields.
The three modules of quantum hardware, quantum software and quantum application have formed the world's first full-platform quantum computing software and hardware integration solution "Liangxi". "Qianshi" is an industrial-grade superconducting quantum computer integrating quantum applications, quantum software, and quantum hardware.
From hardware to software to applications, Baidu has opened up the whole link, and also laid the foundation for the future quantum industrialization road and convenient quantum services for users and customers.
The quantum age has arrived
In the eyes of academia and industry, we have now entered the era of the second quantum revolution. Quantum computing is considered to be at the heart of the next generation of computing technology.
The inevitability here lies in the fact that due to the improvement of chip manufacturing processes, the chip size is getting smaller and smaller, and on the contrary, the number of transistors integrated on the chip is increasing.
When the size of the chip is small to a limit, it naturally enters the quantum world, resulting in quantum effects. "So we need to follow the quantum laws to design and manufacture quantum chips that conform to such laws." Dr. Chen Cheng, senior researcher of the Institute of Hundred Metric Computing, said.
At the same time, in the current information society, the digital economy is developing rapidly, and the amount of data generated every day is very large, while the amount that classical computers can process and calculate has its own ceiling.
Compared with classical computers, the advantages of quantum computing are incomparable. According to Dr. Chen Cheng, "The increase in computing power brought by quantum computing is not multiple, it is an exponential improvement, quantum computing will accelerate the entire classical application scenario, and even cause subversive changes to some industries." ”
In the future, quantum applications in the field of information security can decipher the RSA public key cryptosystem in only 1 second, while classical computers take more than 100,000 years.
According to the "2022 Global Quantum Computing Industry Development Report", in 2021, the global quantum computing market size was about 800 million US dollars, and the market size is expected to grow to about 4 billion US dollars by 2024.
Judy Green, director of CV frontier technology consulting, predicts that by around 2030, the global quantum computing market will show an exponential upward trend from the beginning of the era of fault-tolerant quantum computing to hundreds of billions of dollars or more. ”
Quantum computing has great potential in the future, and domestic and foreign countries have actively deployed quantum computing.
Internationally, in 2018, the EU invested 1 billion euros to implement the quantum flagship program. At the same time, the United States passed the National Quantum Initiative Act, which aims to ensure the continued leadership of the United States in quantum information and its applications, and proposed the Endless Frontier Act, which plans to invest $100 billion in 10 fields such as quantum computing.
IBM, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, Honeywell and other veteran players are deeply engaged in quantum computing, and quantum computing upstarts such as IonQ, Rigetti, and PsiQuantum have received hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital.
Domestically, top scientific research institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese University of Science and Technology, and Tsinghua University have made breakthroughs, such as the 66-qubit "Zu Chongzhi" developed by the University of Science and Technology of China to achieve quantum computing superiority, and the computational complexity is 6 orders of magnitude higher than Google's "Hanging Suzuki".
In March 2018, the Institute of Hundred Metric Computing was established, and in the following years, it successively released the first domestic cloud quantum pulse system "Quantumin", the world's first cloud-volume integrated quantum machine learning platform "Quant Paddle" and the world's first cloud-native quantum computing platform "Quant Yifu".
Duan Runyao, director of the Baidu Research Institute, said in a speech that Baidu has built a Baidu sub-platform with three major projects as the main body: measuring pulse, measuring paddle and measuring easy volt, aiming to provide comprehensive quantum infrastructure as a service QaaS (Quantum Infrastructure as a Service) and pursue the vision of "quantum for everyone".
It can be seen from this that Baidu's goal from the beginning is very clear, to give full play to the advantages of Internet companies, first to do a good job of the software platform. Hundred measure sub-computing is not to solve a specific problem, but to explore a variety of application scenarios with industrial thinking.
The road to quantum industrialization
Baidu CTO Wang Haifeng once said that the industrialization of quantum computing is an important way to exert quantum value. Only when scientific and technological innovation is truly applied to the industry can it have long-term vitality.
Baidu's quantum industrialization is inseparable from "timing", "location" and "people".
On the "Tianshi", the national "14th Five-Year Plan" and the outline of the long-term goals for 2035 emphasize the implementation of future industry incubation and acceleration plans in the field of quantum information and other industrial transformation, the layout of a number of future industries, and the acceleration of the layout of cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing and quantum communication.
Baidu has also adapted to the opportunity to upgrade its strategy, specially formulated the QIAN strategy, and made efforts in quantum basic research Quantum, infrastructure construction, forward-looking quantum application application and quantum ecological network network, which in turn gave birth to quantum software and hardware integration solutions.
On the one hand, Baidu's pulse, paddle and easy volt provide an industry-leading quantum software platform for the successful development of superconducting quantum computers. On the other hand, Baidu aims at the industrialization of quantum computing and integrates quantum applications, quantum platforms, and quantum hardware. Both are indispensable and are the cornerstone of the successful implementation of the integration of software and hardware.
In terms of "people", Baidu adheres to the concept of open and sustainable quantum ecological construction, actively promotes cooperation with industry research institutes, and provides momentum for the successful implementation of software and hardware integration solutions.
However, the real industrialization of quantum computing still faces multiple difficulties and challenges from science, technology and engineering, and the main pain point is that there is a huge gap between quantum hardware and practical applications, and it is necessary to open up a series of applications, software and hardware problems in the whole chain of quantum technology.
This requires understanding the actual application needs of the industrial side to promote comprehensive technological progress. This view was also emphasized at the recent Baidu Create AI developer conference, where Robin Li said that "innovation is not done behind closed doors." Innovation is the opportunity to enter the market, constantly get feedback from users and customers, and feel the "feedback" to cross the river. ”
Specific to the field of quantum computing, the hundred-metric computer is different from the Google/IBM quantum computing technology route, and actively develops superconducting quantum computers oriented to industrialization. Baidu also proposed QIAN's strategy to promote the path of China's quantum industrialization.
QIAN's "dry" strategy was also mentioned at the recent Baidu Create AI Developer Conference, and is one of the top ten "black technologies" unveiled at the Baidu Create Conference.
According to Dr. Chen Cheng, Q stands for the research of quantum fundamental problems, mainly focusing on quantum algorithms, quantum artificial intelligence, quantum architecture, and in particular, based on Baidu Flypaddle, the world's first cloud-volume integrated quantum machine learning platform - Measuring Paddle was developed, successfully realizing the deep integration of quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
I stands for infrastructure construction, which is a highly integrated sub-platform built by Baidu from software to hardware.
A is that Baidu wants to truly empower the application of quantum technology in the industry, focusing on the research and development of key quantum applications, such as artificial intelligence, material simulation, biocomputing, financial technology and other fields.
The final N is the quantum network, which is similar to the classical Internet and will eventually be fully connected. Based on this, Baidu hopes to build an open and sustainable quantum ecological network and share the resources of the quantum ecosystem with partners.
Pan Jianwei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once said that the development of quantum computing has three stages, the first stage is to achieve the superiority of quantum computing, the second stage is to realize a dedicated quantum simulator, and the third stage is to build a programmable universal quantum computer.
Due to technical difficulties, it is not clear when a universal quantum computer will be realized, and academics generally believe that it will take another 15 to 20 years, or even longer.
At present, Baidu released Qianshi and Liangxi, achieved comprehensive independent self-research of quantum applications, quantum software, and quantum hardware core technologies, and explored an effective industrialization path, which is a major breakthrough in the industrialization of quantum computing, marking China's entry into the world's first echelon in quantum computing industrialization.
The vision of "quantum for everyone" may still be a long way off, but the dawn has ushered in, and quantum computing is within reach and in the near future.