US quantum computing company, Quantinuum, has announced what is being described as a significant step towards fault tolerant quantum computing.
Quantinuum’s System Model H2 is said to be the highest performing quantum computer ever built and the launch of the H2 quantum processor, Powered by Honeywell, follows extensive pre-launch work with a variety of partners deemed essential to the controlled creation and manipulation of non-Abelian anyons. The precise control of non-Abelian anyons has been long held as the path to using topological qubits for a fault tolerant quantum computer.
Commenting Tony Uttley, President and COO of Quantinuum, said, “With our second-generation system, we are entering a new phase of quantum computing. H2 highlights the opportunity to achieve valuable outcomes that are only possible with a quantum computer. The development of the H2 processor is also a critical step in moving towards universal fault tolerant quantum computing.” He added, “This demonstration is a beautiful proof point in the power of our H-Series hardware roadmap and reinforces our primary purpose which is to enable our customers to tackle problems that were previously beyond the reach of classical computers."
One of the first experiments conducted on H2 by scientists from Quantinuum, in collaboration with researchers from Harvard University and Caltech, demonstrated a new state of matter, a non-Abelian topologically ordered state. This is an area of expertise that has been pursued in “stealth mode” for some years within Quantinuum, with the core team based in Munich and led by Dr. Henrik Dreyer.
Due to the differentiating features and precision control of the H2 processor, the topological state (that is essentially a qubit with limited gate capacity) was created in such a way where its properties could be precisely controlled in real-time, demonstrating the creation, braiding and annihilation (measurement) of non-Abelian anyons.
The results, available in a pre-print of a detailed scientific paper that has been made available on arXiv, details Quantinuum’s work which opens up exciting new fields of research within condensed matter physics, which would have been impossible using a classical computer alone.
“Fault tolerant quantum computing is our ultimate aim,” said Ilyas Khan, Founder and Chief Product Officer at Quantinuum. “This could well be a transistor moment for the quantum computing industry – and the fact that we have used a quantum computer as the machine tool for building topological qubits that are a significant step towards fault tolerant quantum computing is further testimony to our long-held belief that quantum systems are best explored and created by other quantum systems.”
He added, “We are looking forward to building on this critical breakthrough. These are exciting times ahead for the whole industry and we have some further milestones that we can’t wait to share with the world.”
The H2 features initially include 32 fully-connected, high-fidelity qubits and an all-new architecture that advances the System Model H1’s linear design (with a new ion trap whose oval shape resembles a “racetrack”). Quantinuum showcased the H2’s capability by demonstrating a 32-qubit GHZ state (a non-classical state with all 32 qubits globally entangled), the largest on record.
The unique “racetrack” design of the System Model H2 enables all-to-all connectivity between qubits, meaning that every qubit in the H2 can directly be pairwise entangled with any other qubit in the system. Near-term doing so reduces the overall errors in algorithms, and long term opens up additional opportunities for new, more efficient error correcting codes – both critical for continuing to accelerate the capabilities of quantum computing.
When combined with the demonstration of controlled non-Abelian anyons, the integrated achievement highlights an important step in topological quantum information storage and processing.
Additionally, the new design is a powerful step towards showing the scaling potential of ion-trap devices. Not only is H2 a demonstration of the scaling power of ion traps in the quantum charge coupled device (QCCD) architecture: showing the ability to simultaneously scale qubit number while maintaining performance, it also contains new technologies that pave the way for further scaling in subsequent generations. Similar to the first-generation systems, H2 is designed to accommodate future upgrades over its product lifecycle, meaning that qubit number and qubit quality will both be improved upon.
Built on the proven foundations of Quantinuum’s H-Series, the System Model H2, includes numerous hallmark features that collectively set it apart from other types of quantum computers: all-to-all connectivity, qubit reuse, mid-circuit measurement with conditional logic, industry leading high-fidelity qubit operations, and long coherence times. Additionally, the impressive performance gains of the System Model H1 to achieve repeatedly increasing Quantum Volume (QV) records is expected to continue with H2. H2 launches with a Quantum Volume 65,536 surpassing the last record announced using H1-1 in February of this year.
Besides the headline breakthrough, the H2 has already been active in experimental studies by a range of organisations and companies, with notable results, for example, Global Technology Applied Research at JPMorgan Chase has published a paper on the quantum optimisation algorithm design for portfolio optimisation, with numerical results successfully validated on H2 during early access.
The H2 is available now through cloud-based access from Quantinuum and will be available through Microsoft Azure Quantum beginning in June. Additionally, a noise-informed emulator of H2 is made possible through NVIDIA’s cuQuantum SDK of optimised libraries and tools, which help accelerate quantum computing simulation workflows.
