Quantum Computing
Towards large-scale quantum computers with silicon quantum bits
Founded in 2018, the Quantum Silicon Grenoble consortium brings together CEA-Leti CEA-Irig, CNRS-Néel Institute, and UGA researchers, working towards the development of a 100-qubit processor. In an early success, the group encapsulated a single electron in a silicon circuit leveraging silicon-based CMOS technology. When this single electron reaches its quantum state, it is oriented towards the north and south magnetic poles at the same time. That is called a “state superposition”. When a superposition is reached, a qubit takes simultaneously both 0 and 1 values, unlike conventional bits, which can only take one of these values at a time. This physical phenomenon helps boost computing capacity of quantum computers exponentially, compared to conventional computers.
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Application
The strength of quantum technology resides in the intrinsic parallelism of operations which, wisely used with specific algorithms, enables an exponential acceleration of computations, compared to current computers. Ultimately, quantum computing is likely to bring improvements within various areas, including: - Simulation: i.e. helping to identify the best drug to eliminate viruses, bacteria or cure cancers; improving physics and materials science,
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Machine learning and Big Data: Developing autonomous vehicles, improving traffic, weather and financial forecasts, mathematical calculations, etc.,
- Cybersecurity: cryptography especially.
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