A $5 million prize awaits proof that quantum computers are useful for health care
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I’m standing in front of a quantum computer built out of atoms and light at the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre on the outskirts of Oxford. On a laboratory table, a complex matrix of mirrors and lenses surrounds a Rubik’s Cube–size cell where 100 cesium atoms are suspended in grid formation by a carefully manipulated laser beam. The cesium atom setup is so compact that I could pick it up, carry it out of the lab, and put it on the backseat of my car to take home. I’d be unlikely to get very far, though. It’s small but powerful—and so it’s very valuable. Infleqtion, the Colorado-based company that owns it, is hoping the machine’s abilities will win $5 million next week, at an event to be held in Marina del Rey, California. Infleqtion is one of six teams that have made it to the final stage of a 30-month-long quantum computing competition called Quantum for Bio (Q4Bio). Run by the nonprofit Wellcome Leap, it aims to show that today’s quantum computers, though messy and error-prone and far from the large-scale machines engineers hope to build, could actually benefit human health. Success would be a significant step forward in proving the worth of quantum computers. But for now, it turns out, that worth seems to be linked to harnessing and improving the performance of conventional (also called classical) computers in tandem, creating a quantum-classical hybrid that can exceed what’s possible on classical machines by themselves. submitted by /u/techreview [link] [comments]