Chinese scientists successfully developed a new programmable optical quantum computing chip

The development of a quantum computer with practical value is the most important development goal in the field of quantum computing. The QUANTA team of the National University of Defense Technology’s School of Computer, together with the Academy of Military Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University and other domestic and foreign units, successfully developed a new programmable silicon-based optical quantum computing chip, which can solve a variety of graph theory problems with quantum algorithms, and is expected to be obtained in the field of big data processing in the future application. On February 27th, Beijing time, the international authoritative journal "Science Progress" published this important result.

The small number of qubits and the shallow depth of effective quantum operations are restrictive issues that exist at the current stage of quantum technology. Under such limited conditions, how to maximize the use of quantum resources and design quantum devices that can be programmed to run quantum algorithms with practical prospects are important challenges in the field of quantum computing.

According to reports, quantum walk is a unique mathematical model in the world of quantum physics, as well as an important quantum computing model, and an important core of many quantum algorithms. During the development of the new programmable light quantum computing chip, researchers proposed a light quantum chip structure that can be dynamically programmed to achieve multi-particle quantum walks, which can fully control the quantum walk evolution time, Hamiltonian, particle identity, particle exchange characteristics and other factors. , To realize the quantum walk process of different parameters, thereby supporting the operation of a series of quantum algorithms based on the quantum walk model. Based on the proposed structure, researchers used silicon-based integrated optical technology to design and implement a programmable optical quantum computing chip. The chip integrates an entangled photon source, a configurable optical network, etc., and realizes the control of the light quantum state through the electrical control of the on-chip components, thereby realizing the encoding of quantum information and the mapping of quantum algorithms, with high integration, high stability, and high accuracy And other advantages. By programming and running the developed optical quantum computing chip, it demonstrates the solution of quantum algorithms for graph theory problems such as vertex search and graph isomorphism. In the future, with the increase in chip scale and the number of photons, the scale of graph problems that the chip can support will grow rapidly. (Liu Yulan, reporter Zhang Qiang)

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