First functional quantum processor created, lasted slightly longer than your last Xbox 360

UK researchers said they were getting close earlier this year, but in one brilliant fraction of a second a gaggle of Yalies beat those limeys to the punch, with a team led by Robert Schoelkopf, a professor of Applied Physics at Yale, creating what's being hailed as the first quantum processor to actually perform calculations. It's composed of aluminum atoms grouped together to form two quantum bits, communicating over an unimaginatively named named quantum bus that enables one to change the (wait for it) quantum state of the other. This first qubit shifter was able to maintain state for 1,000 times longer than any previous qubit ever produced -- but since its predecessors could only manage a nanosecond's worth of cognition we're still only talking a microsecond here. In other words: there's still a long way to go before you'll be slotting one of these into your gaming rig.

[nvidiagtx @ Jun 29th 2009 9:02AM]

It's a start! I remember when we hit 1mhz everybody thought that was not possible same with Megabytes

[Kurian @ Jun 29th 2009 9:35AM]

Starting back from Slot processors that is!

[OneLove @ Jun 29th 2009 9:37AM]

did it disappear into an alternate reality?

[Quantumphysics @ Jun 29th 2009 10:02AM]

When Xbox gets Quantum Processing, suddenly people will experience an INFINITE NUMBER OF RED RINGS OF DEATH

[Tim Brown @ Jun 29th 2009 10:39AM]

@Quantumphysics
Dont we already?

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 29th 2009 12:10PM]

this is one of the first articles that i've read on engadget in a long long time where i just thought "wtf" after finishing.

[sotec_productions @ Jun 29th 2009 12:58PM]

@simbadogg

Really, this is the first one? You must be new here....

A little hint: Engadget is like a really hot diseased whore. You know she's giving you the clap and probably 9 levels of AIDS, but damn she's hot. Why do you stay with her? All she talks about is frickin Apple news! You don't know, but you do stay....you do stay...and you find yourself saying WTF a lot to the things she says....maybe it's that her being so dumb is a turn on, knowing you're so much better than her.

[OneLove @ Jun 29th 2009 2:31PM]

he has a strange growth on his waist, under his left arm.

[sk8ordie @ Jun 29th 2009 3:33PM]

Wow I was hoping that they would say something like, "Why is this picture related to the article?" I guess Engadget is going gay. Sad. Just kidding lol.

[JonyEpsilon @ Jun 29th 2009 9:04AM]

This is a really misleading story. People have done quantum computations before with more q-bits, and people have built q-bits with vastly greater coherence times than the one's in the article.

The real claim is that this is the first all solid-state quantum computation.

[Aaron @ Jun 29th 2009 9:14AM]

Proof? Links?

[engadget @ Jun 29th 2009 9:30AM]

@Aaron Do your own research! Try googling: there are many established results and they should be easy to find. If you're interested in getting someone else to boil-down physics developments for you might I suggest you sign up to the excellent, and free, APS Physics bulletin http://physics.aps.org/ .

[Aaron @ Jun 29th 2009 1:50PM]

I didn't make the claim, the burden of proof is on Jony. If I was really interested in figuring that out I'd look for it, but I'm just questioning whether Jony here is talking BS or actually knows something.

[JonyEpsilon @ Jun 29th 2009 2:41PM]

It's a blog not a court: there is no "burden of proof"!

Anyway, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and imagine that you really are interested in physics and not just some awkward internet type ...

The NMR people have been doing computation for a long time now on systems with more than two bits. There was a famous paper by Ike Chuang in 2001 that implemented a real search algorithm on an NMR quantum computer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2F414883a . I'm pretty sure there were others before that with smaller computations but off the top of my head I can't point you to links. Nobody has figured out how to scale NMR beyond a few bits, for various pretty fundamental reasons.

Looking to other technologies that can get round this limitation, the leader is probably strings of trapped, laser cooled ions. There are two powerhouse groups: Rainer Blatt's group in Innsbruck , and the group of Dave Wineland at NIST (http://tf.nist.gov/ion/qucomp/papers.htm). They've both managed to entangle long strings of ions (8 I think is the record). There's a review here http://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/2284.pdf .

Coherence times for trapped ions are vastly longer than those for solid state systems, including the one reported above. Amazingly, optical coherences of greater than one second have been observed in these systems by encoding the q-bit in a dechorence free subspace of a pair of ions (see below). Hyperfine coherences can be much longer than this.

[JonyEpsilon @ Jun 29th 2009 2:42PM]

That final link: http://heart-c704.uibk.ac.at/publications/papers/prl04_roos.pdf

[Kinger @ Jun 29th 2009 3:52PM]

tits or gtfo

[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (BarCODE) @ Jun 29th 2009 7:43PM]

Not that misleading. I have Incandescent light bulbs that have outlasted 80% of the XBOX 360's ever made.

[Gadget freak @ Jun 29th 2009 9:05AM]

Seems microsoft stays ahead... if they can manage to make the xbox last longer than couple of days this will get fixed in no time... :P

[nukee @ Jun 29th 2009 9:05AM]

Zing!

[NateDog @ Jun 29th 2009 9:11AM]

Right click image
Click AdBlock Image ...
Select the radio button to block scott-bakula-quantum-processor-20090629-2.jpg
Click Add filter
Pray that the few seconds you looked at it will not give you nightmares

[Mike @ Jun 29th 2009 9:19AM]

Oh, come on. He's HOT (for his age)...

I certainly wouldn't kick him out of bed. ;)

[Cheng @ Jun 29th 2009 11:46AM]

I'd hit him...

[NHAnimator @ Jun 29th 2009 12:33PM]

I would too. Just not the way YOU meant it.

[Aaron @ Jun 29th 2009 1:55PM]

Well I'm pretty sure he meant hit him physically in a striking force, so I'm guessing you're suggesting otherwise.

[Vivek @ Jun 29th 2009 9:11AM]

Way to misrepresent the actual accomplishment, Engadget. Also, a quantum bit is called a qubit, not a qbit.

[Zane @ Jun 29th 2009 9:15AM]

Doesn't matter as long as it conveys the point. http://www.bradrubin.com/Site/Blog/Entries/2009/1/16_Qubit_or_Qbit.html

[Agent .25i @ Jun 29th 2009 9:30AM]

Unless you're Q-Bert

[Zane @ Jun 29th 2009 9:12AM]

WHAT THE ... ? MY EYES!

[cg006 @ Jun 29th 2009 9:16AM]

HAHAAH


Isnt that Hasselhof's pic with the quantum leap guys face photoshoped in there? LMAO

thats is one funny picture.

[JMC @ Jun 29th 2009 9:28AM]

That Blake Johnson sure is a hot stud.

[Crexis =NX= @ Jun 29th 2009 9:29AM]

*$&#!!!

I was reading Engadget at a public cafe! Forget whether or not it makes me look gay - it makes me look gay for Scott Friggin Bakula!!!1! I could do better!

[Agent .25i @ Jun 29th 2009 9:29AM]

Awwwfuc. Ive been half body fro'd!

[moje @ Jun 29th 2009 9:33AM]

Am I the only one who recognises him as Cpt Archer?

[james @ Jun 29th 2009 9:38AM]

ooooh captain!!

[htowngator @ Jun 29th 2009 9:40AM]

or Chuck's dad (aka Orion)

[sinjinn @ Jun 29th 2009 10:07AM]

no , its not captain archer, its the guy from quantum leap. same actor, different chrachter.

[Jack @ Jun 29th 2009 10:12AM]

*facepalm*

[Sean @ Jun 30th 2009 3:47PM]

Oh boy.

[zephxiii @ Jun 29th 2009 4:23PM]

Don't forget that Captain Archer saved planet Earth!!!!!!

[BB @ Jun 29th 2009 3:07PM]

Actually, I only recognize him as The Bakula Debacle

[Nathan @ Jun 29th 2009 8:23PM]

mmmm... T'Pol.

You so know Archer wanted to hit that.

[htowngator @ Jun 29th 2009 9:37AM]

Ah, the 70s and 80s... When chest hair was still cool.

[benderillo @ Jun 29th 2009 1:12PM]

I don't know about all of that... I still think your mom is cool.

[Pretol @ Jun 30th 2009 2:11AM]

A quick mutation has stopped all chest hair growage?

[TheLionOfAzzalle @ Jun 29th 2009 9:41AM]

SO HOT!!!!!

[iacovosf @ Jun 29th 2009 9:42AM]

Thank God nobody rushed in while I was reading it :p

[hpowell9451 @ Jun 29th 2009 9:57AM]

It's amazing how close we are coming to all sorts of tech like this. Even more amazing is how in the year 2009, Microsoft still can't figure out how to build something that doesn't crash and burn (literally).

[Asten @ Jun 29th 2009 10:15AM]

Anyone else wonder why Yale University invested in taking pictures of a shirtless Scott Bakula?

[Hackettman @ Jun 29th 2009 10:59AM]

And by "actually does calculations" you mean they were testing out Crysis on it....... Its ok you can come clean.......

[NoAndThen @ Jun 29th 2009 11:41AM]

Yeah, and they were able to get 1,000,000 FPS!

Unfortunately, it was unplayable-

as they only ended up with 1 frame and then had to send it in to get refurbished.. (in their own box, no less!)