The Chinese company Baidu unveiled the first superconducting quantum computer, Qianshi, which touts it as the first all-platform quantum hardware-software integration solution in the world.Â
This is the company’s first superconducting quantum computer that combines its hardware platform and software stack called Liang Xi on an industrial scale. The ability of a material to conduct electricity without producing heat or wasting energy is known as superconductivity. Several businesses have introduced quantum systems using superconductive components in recent years. The software stack, which Baidu has developed, includes:
- A quantum machine learning called Paddle Quantum
- A quantum error processing toolkit dubbed QEP
- Several other components
The 10-qubit quantum computer, which integrates various practical quantum applications, was shown at the Quantum Create 2022 conference in Beijing. These applications include quantum algorithms for simulating protein folding and designing new materials for novel lithium batteries. The company further emphasizes that the performance of other commercially accessible quantum computers is currently limited to 7 qubits. This innovation results from four years of extensive research and development by Baidu’s Institute for Quantum Computing. The division has already begun developing Qianshi’s successor, which Baidu claims will have a 36-qubit superconducting quantum processor with couplers.
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According to Runyao Duan, director of the Institute for Quantum Computing at Baidu Research, “with Qianshi and Liang Xi, users can create quantum algorithms and use quantum computing power without developing their quantum hardware, control systems, or programming languages.” Runyao claims with the help of Baidu’s inventions, anybody with a smartphone may now access quantum computing from anywhere at any time. Baidu’s platform is also readily compatible with a wide range of quantum processors, allowing for “plug-and-play” access.
