China releases its top-of-the-line quantum computer ``Origin Wukong'' to the world, state media reports, as US users flood in

Logged-in users also included users from Bulgaria, Singapore, Japan, Russia and Canada, but the US led the tally, the newspaper said, without providing specific numbers.

The machine has completed 33,871 quantum computing tasks for users around the world since it began operations on January 6, the report added.

Origin Wukong, named after the Monkey King in Chinese mythology, is China’s first domestically produced third-generation superconducting quantum computer.

According to Science and Technology Daily, it is the latest and most advanced programmable and deliverable machine of its kind in China.

Chinese scientists claim record breakthrough in quantum computing

Origin Quantum, the company behind this feat, was founded in 2017 by Guo Guoping and Guo Guangchen, leading quantum physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in southeastern Anhui province.

“America’s quantum computer is not open to China,” Guo Guoping told the Post. “However, in order to adhere to the concept of scientific exploration without borders and jointly advance the concept of quantum computing for the benefit of humanity, we are willing to open our services to users around the world, including the United States. .”

Quantum computing is considered a disruptive technology. It uses subatomic particles called qubits (short for quantum bits) as the basic units of information. This is equivalent to the digital bits used in traditional computing.

China and the United States are competing to be number one in the use of key technologies that have the potential to transform many sectors, including healthcare, finance, and data security.

Origin delivered the first superconducting quantum computer to the domestic market in 2020. Japan’s first practical quantum computer was also manufactured by Origin. This is his 24-qubit Wuyuan second generation machine, which was delivered to an undisclosed user in 2021.

This feat makes China the third country after Canada and the United States to gain the ability to provide a complete quantum computing system.

Wukong is powered by a 72-qubit homemade superconducting quantum chip, also known as the Wukong chip.

Jia Zhilong, director of quantum chip research and development at Origin, said the launch of the domestically produced chip and computer is like an “admission ticket” to the field of superconducting quantum computer manufacturing.

He said this shows that China can independently produce scalable quantum computer chips and systems at a certain scale, local newspaper Anhui Daily reported earlier this month.

China sells quantum chips to Middle East and West to show growing influence

Kong Weicheng, another researcher at Origin, told the paper that the company’s latest powerful machine can send and run up to 200 quantum circuits at once, giving it a significant speed advantage. Ta.

Despite these advances, the quantum gap between Chinese players and Western players remains large.

In November 2022, IBM released the 433-qubit Osprey processor, the world’s fastest quantum computer at the time. Last October, California startup Atom Computing left Osprey behind by debuting the first quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits. Two months later, IBM announced Condor with 1,121 superconducting qubits.

Although having more qubits does not necessarily mean better performance, error-free quantum computers are more useful than today’s “noisy” research machines, which have a certain probability of errors during the calculation process. will require a large number of qubits to build.

Quantum computers offer a faster, more efficient method of calculation than traditional computers. Photo: Shutterstock — Quantum computers offer faster and more efficient methods of calculation than traditional computers.Photo: Shutterstock

Chinese scientists acknowledge the gap with Western countries.

In late 2022, Origin Quantum’s general manager Zhang Hui said that although China is at the forefront of global quantum science research, it is “relatively behind” in quantum computing.

Developing a quantum computer involves many advanced engineering problems, Zhang told Chinese news outlet Guancha.cn. This includes the production of superconducting chips and conventional semiconductors, both important high-tech areas where China lags behind the United States and other Western countries.

He added that there is a big gap between China and the US in the industrial application of quantum computing.

“Major companies like IBM and Google started exploring industrial applications as early as the 1990s. But we only started exploring industrial applications when we founded Origin Quantum in 2017.” said Zhang.

However, whether they have 72 qubits or more than 1,000 qubits, quantum computers will not immediately replace classical computers. Currently, only very limited tasks can be performed in a protected environment for short periods of time.

Due to a number of technical challenges, such as the ability to correct errors, some scientists predict that quantum computers are still years, if not decades, away from becoming practical.

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