University of Surrey scientist publishes blueprint for large-scale quantum computer

Don't try this at home - unless you have a lot of money

A template for a large-scale quantum computer has been published in a project led bya University of Surrey professor. The template was published on Thursday in Science Advances, a heavyweight US-based science magazine.

Quantum computing, which moves away from the idea of 0s and 1s in favour of simultaneous flux, would enable calculations to be performed at a considerably faster rate, cutting a days work down to seconds in some cases.

However, up to now the quantum computing capabilities of machines produced by companies like D-Wave, which have been purchased by NASA and Google, have been limited.

This new design uses electric fields to pass information between quantum cores using charged atoms (ions) rather than fibre optics. This means that the compute power of a multi-core machine is meaningful in speed, with the machine able to transfer data between nodes at up to 100,000 times that of previous attempts.

That is the theory, but in practice it won't be so simple. Not only will any quantum computer be huge, but it will need to exist housed in a vacuum, which will add further cost and complexity.

Professor Winfried Hensinger, head of Ion Quantum Technology at Sussex Uni, said: "For many years, people said that it was completely impossible to construct an actual quantum computer.

"With our work we have not only shown that it can be done but now we are delivering a nuts and bolts construction plan to build an actual large-scale machine."

A prototype is the next phase, and although the funding the team has received from the UK government is aimed at promoting quantum computing in the industrial sector, the ramifications of a working, full-speed machine could potentially be felt across humankind.

Heinsinger added: "The availability of a universal quantum computer may have a fundamental impact on society as a whole. Without doubt it is still challenging to build a large-scale machine, but now is the time to translate academic excellence into actual application building on the UK's strengths in this ground-breaking technology. I am very excited to work with industry and government to make this happen."

The news comes less than a week after D-Wave, a company specialising in Quantum computing, sold a machine to cyber security company Temporal Defence. The smaller scale machine will be used to "revolutionise" encryption.