Quantum computing is a potentially revolutionary field of technology, which uses quantum phenomena to solve problems that would take a conventional computer thousands of years. However, quantum computers are challenging to scale to a large size, which prevents the construction of a quantum computer with enough computational power to be industry-disrupting. A recent breakthrough at the University of Oxford relating to quantum teleportation may provide a route to overcoming this issue.
What is quantum computing and why is this breakthrough important?
Quantum computers represent information using qubits. Unlike the bits used in classical computers, which represent information using either a 1 or a 0, qubits can be in a superposition of states, meaning that they can be in both states at once. When the qubit is observed or measured, the qubit will "collapse" into a single state, and will remain in that same state every subsequent time it is measured. One possible implementation of a qubit (and the implementation used in the University of Oxford study) is a trapped ion, which involves trapping a charged particle using electromagnetic fields.
As mentioned, scaling a quantum computer to the sizes required is challenging. A quantum computer able to outperform current supercomputers would have to operate on the scale of millions of qubits. Packing all of these qubits into a single device using current approaches would require the quantum computer to be unfeasibly large. Instead of a single monolithic device, an alternative quantum computer could be constructed by joining multiple smaller modules containing a limited number of qubits into a single system. These interconnected modules could then work together to perform large scale computation.
However, linking these individual modules together requires the ability to transfer information between the modules. In the recent study, researchers at the University of Oxford have achieved this through the use of quantum teleportation. Quantum teleportation involves entangling qubits in separate modules, which allows individual qubits within the modules to remain correlated and share information even over a great distance. Although quantum teleportation has been achieved in the past, it has previously been limited to the transfer of individual states. Here, a quantum logic gate (which is the building block of a quantum circuit, similar to how classical logic gates are used to construct traditional circuits) was transferred across a network link over a distance of about 2 metres.
The modules in question were linked together using optical fibres and were able to communicate using photons. Joining small modules together in this way would allow for a quantum computer with a large number of qubits to be constructed.
A distributed quantum processor formed using the modules was then used to execute Grover's search algorithm, an algorithm that takes advantage of the nature of qubits being in multiple states at once to search through a large and unstructured dataset that would be computationally impossible for a conventional computer to parse. An average success rate of 71% was obtained (meaning the correct result was achieved in 71% of searches). According to the researchers knowledge, this is the first deterministic execution of any algorithm on a distributed quantum computer.
Although we are still far away from large scale quantum computers, this breakthrough represents a possible solution to the long-standing issue of scalability, and brings us a step closer to general use quantum computing.
Quantum computing trends in IP
The growing importance of quantum computing related technologies is reflected in the number of patent applications filed that relate to the field. A study conducted by the EPO in 2023 found that there has recently been a sharp increase in the number of patent families in the field of quantum computing in comparison to the increase experienced in other fields. This is illustrated in the below figure (taken from the EPO study), which compares the number of general patent publications to the number of quantum computing related patent publications.
There is an especially strong trend between quantum computing related inventions and another sector with a rapidly growing number of patent applications filed – artificial intelligence. The sub sector of "quantum computing and artificial intelligence/machine learning" has shown growth even greater than the general sector of quantum computing, as shown in the below figure. Equally, the sub sector has a greater diversity in the nationality of applicants compared to other sub-sectors, which are more US centric.
This rapid growth, especially in combination with artificial intelligence, shows that businesses see a commercial future in quantum computing.
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