Over 25 billion dollars in public investments, technological giants such as Amazon but also dozens of small businesses to start-ups all over the world: the 'race' towards quantum computers is becoming more and more global.
Powerful tools still in the 'exploratory' phase that promise to open a new window on the quantum world, a 'bridge' between two worlds governed by different laws and logics.
"Quantum computers are still in a phase that we could define as 'exploratory'" - said the director of Quantum computing of Amazon Web Services (Aws), Simone Severini to ANSA - and there are two directions for the research: on the one hand improve their performance to make them fully operational on the other hand fully understand their possible applications ".
The chip of a quantum computer by Braket (source: Inaf - Aws)
Traditional quantum computers and supercomputers are in fact two completely different types of machines that work in two different 'worlds'.
"It is difficult to say how the sector will evolve and what concrete applications it will have", added Severini.
"As in biology experiments are performed 'in vitro' by replicating biological phenomena in the laboratory, perhaps in a while we will work 'in silico', replicating physics in the computer".
"I believe that quantum computers - observed Severini - must be interpreted first of all as new and powerful scientific instruments, as are telescopes or particle accelerators. Quantum computers allow you to access a fundamental physical reality, that of quanta: they open the doors of 'places' that we had not yet explored ".
Precisely the 'bizarre' quantum behaviors used as computer information units (qubits, i.e. quantum bits) become the bridge between two worlds governed by completely different logics and laws, the 'traditional' one of classical physics and that of quanta , and thus simulate what happens for example in molecules on atomic scales or during chemical reactions.
Although the sector is still pioneering, quantum technologies are nevertheless attracting large investments: leading the ranking of the public ones is China which has allocated 10 billion dollars in the development of the sector and the United States with a public plan over 1 billion plus the investments of many tech giants.
At work on the processor cooling system (source: Aws)
Among the protagonists also Europe with a 1 billion 'flagship' and the choices of individual countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands (overall 5 billion) as well as Canada, India and Japan, up to New Zealand and Israel.
A total of 25 billion plus the efforts of large companies such as Google and IBM and dozens of start-ups.
The Braket service of Amazon Web Service, a cloud service of quantum computers "which in a certain sense provides an open window to all those interested in understanding and seeing where technology is, has also contributed to giving a boost to the sector. complexity of having to equip themselves with these machines ", said Severini.
There are many realities that exploit this possibility: starting from research institutions, for example in Italy the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and Cineca, or startups such as QCWare and Qu @ Co that are developing applications, the first in the field financial the second in chemistry.
Braket offers a diversified 'fleet' of machines, from superconducting computers to trapped ions, and now it will be enriched with two new types of quantum computers including the one developed by QuEra which using Rydberg atoms has ideal characteristics for the study of physics basic.
