SmallTalks "How Can Sound Help Connect Quantum Computers to the Internet?"

Abstract 

Even many decades after their inception classical computers continue to become more and more powerful. Yet some problems —such as simulating new drugs or optimizing complex systems—are so hard that even the best classical computers cannot solve them efficiently. That is why the world is racing towards the first useful quantum computer, which harnesses phenomena of quantum mechanics to make certain types of calculations exponentially faster. Here at Chalmers, the Wallenberg Centre of Quantum Technology leads an effort to build a quantum computer based on superconducting quantum bits. This approach is one of the most promising ones towards quantum computing but it requires the hardware to be cooled close to absolute zero. Efficiently linking several of these super cool machines into a network remains a major challenge. In this talk, I will present our work on a device called a quantum transducer which converts microwaves to light. This would allow quantum computers to be linked through optical fiber networks, much like today’s internet connects classical computers. Merging multiple quantum computers into one cluster could make them more powerful, ease scaling up the technology, and ultimately contribute to meaningful advances, for example in drug development, optimization tasks and physics simulations. Apart from quantum computing, our transducers may also be interesting for classical communication technology.