What It Will Take to Make Quantum Computers Practical

As the marathon to achieve the promise of quantum computing edges forward one step at a time, researchers are making incredible discoveries in the lab.

But moving from lab scale to the real world will require demonstrating quantum practicality – the moment this transformative technology makes the leap from research to commercial viability in applications such as drug development, logistics optimization (e.g., finding the most efficient way from any number of possible travel routes), natural disaster prediction and many more.

At Intel, that’s our ultimate goal.

And while every milestone reached in quantum computing research is cause for celebration, my concern is that the field will not advance the quantum ecosystem enough to enable the leap from the lab to a point where it will change lives.

Researchers have focused extensively on qubit fabrication, building test chips that demonstrate the exponential power of a small number of entangled qubits. This work demonstrates the theory and potential of quantum computing – but not our ability to manufacture a practical system.

In my view, a fundamental component in the quantum stack is being overlooked. There is not enough research being done to advance the control and interconnect system required to effectively operate large-scale quantum systems. Today, every qubit is individually controlled. It is a brute-force approach that will not scale to the many qubits needed to change the world.

And without overcoming this hurdle, we won’t cross the finish line in this race.

Developing a commercially viable quantum system has been Intel’s focus for some time now – and we’re delighted to report that we’ve made significant headway.

Recently, we unveiled a new team member in the quantum computing race. We call it “Horse Ridge” and it’s named after one of the coldest places in Oregon. Developed together with Intel’s research collaborators at QuTech, a partnership between TU Delft and TNO (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research), it is believed to be the first-of-its-kind scalable cryogenic control chip. Horse Ridge will simplify the interconnects or wiring of multiple qubits that will allow us to elegantly scale up the system.

With a scalable control system in place, we can go from quantum theory to quantum practicality much faster.