United States,

International Business Machines Headquarters,

This is the world's largest information technology and business solutions company, often referred to as IBM, and it has a number of heavyweight laboratories, including quantum computer experiments, and IBM has a good performance in the field of quantum computers.

Unlike Google,

IBM put forward the concept of 'quantum advantage', which shows the ability of quantum computing to surpass classical computing for real application scenarios, which means that quantum advantage should not only reflect the crushing of computing power, but also be useful.

According to Moore's Law in the quantum age, according to IBM, the quantum volume will double every year, and quantum superiority is expected to be achieved in the 2020s.

IBM, on the other hand, defines a metric of "quantum volume", which is a parameter related to the number of active qubits and the error rate – the higher the number of qubits and the lower the error rate, the larger the quantum volume.

therefore

IBM and Google in the field of quantum computers, there is a stark contrast, the emergence of Google's quantum supremacy, only to increase the confidence of the technology and industry, it does not bring real business value, because the algorithm that Google uses to demonstrate quantum supremacy is meaningless.

However, quantum advantage is trying to achieve business value, and no one can predict when it will come, so it is not easy to find a quantum algorithm with practical value and demonstrate it.

Orkney, the head of IBM's quantum computer lab, has just arrived at his lab, and the results are... The next second, he was approached by his colleagues.

"What?"

"Huaguo... Fifty qubits of chips have been developed?!" Orkney looked at his colleague in horror, he was greatly shocked at this time, in the field of quantum computers, Huaguo basically has no sense of existence.

"It's all being reported now. The balding middle-aged man said solemnly, "Orkney... Look at the news. ”

moment

Orkney saw the news about Huaguo's fifty qubit chips, and when he knew that it was Xu Mang, he couldn't describe it as shocking.

"This..."

"It's surprising that this... He came to the field of quantum computers quietly. ”

"Is it graphene again? He solved the 'coherence time' of the graphene qubits? How did he do that? I remember that graphene was studied in superconducting quantum computing devices, but there were no reports of coherence recordings... Xu Mang actually solved it?"

"Xu Yang structure?"

"What kind of existence is this?"

Too many doubts filled Orkney's brain, and for a moment he felt suffocated.

"Orkney?"

"What do we do now?" the middle-aged man asked, "If the report is true... Then the team led by Xu Mang will be on the same ladder as us. ”

"No, it won't. ”

"At present, the research results in this area have not appeared in front of our eyes, and it is a little unrealistic to rely on the news media reports. Orkney said seriously: "And our 53-qubit quantum cloud computing service is about to be completed, and we will still maintain the world's first position in the application field when the time comes." ”

Although shocked by Huaguo's huge leap in the field of quantum computers, if you rely on news reports, Orkney still has a lot of doubts, and the perfect solution is to provide relevant evidence.

As for the ranking issue, Orkney is even less worried about the situation that China will surpass itself, fifty quantum chips only have the ability to join the field of quantum computers, but in the application problem, IBM occupies an absolute height.

According to the layout,

Quantum cloud computing services will be the perfect embodiment of realizing business value.

"What if..."

"Follow-up Xu Mang researched more qubit chips, so... How should we deal with it?" the middle-aged man frowned: "We don't have a relevant way to deal with it, once this happens, we can only watch him become the number one in the world." ”

"No!"

"Including our competitor Google, we have only done a maximum of fifty-three qubits, and in a short period of time... Fifty-three qubits is the limit. Orkney affirmed: "It won't go beyond that." ”

In the face of Orkney's statement, the middle-aged man nodded, although it has been rumored that Google is testing a chip containing seventy-two qubits, there has been no news of this news and the past two whole months.

The so-called quantum error correction in the true sense has always been in the same concept.

meanwhile

Google Quantum Computer Research Lab.

A group of people were in shock, and many people questioned Huaguo's achievements, in addition to their own sense of superiority, but also because they did not provide relevant professional research reports.

"Fake!"

"They're good at making fakes. A man who looked quite young said disdainfully: "According to what I know about Huaguo, they don't have the ability to study fifty qubit chips. ”

In many reports, Hua Guo and Xu Mang have been questioned, among which CNN, which is praised by Xu Mang as junk media, that is, CNN, has made an exclusive report on Huaguo's 50 qubit chips.

And what's inside...

Xu Mang was criticized for being useless, and by the way, he belittled Huaguo.

"I think..."

"This needs to be approached sensibly. A young woman said, "Xu Mang... He is a well-known scientist with authoritative voice in many fields, and since he developed it... I think there's a good chance that this news is true. ”

On whether the news is true or not,

It is roughly divided into three categories, some of which are believed to be true, some are considered fake news, and some are waiting.

soon

The topic passed, and everyone began to work nervously again, but there was a middle-aged man who kept watching the news and his brow was tightly knit from the beginning, and he was the head of the research laboratory, Professor Merck.

"How is that possible?"

"Not long ago, Hua Guo just uploaded an article on arXiv, about the problem of boson sampling of 20 input photons in a 60-mode interferometer to achieve 10^14 states in space. ”

"All of a sudden... And up to fifty qubit chips?"

Professor Merck was lost in thought, could it be... The team that uploaded an article on arXiv is obviously not Xu Mang, so ... It shows that Huaguo attaches great importance to quantum computers.

Prior to that,

Professor Merck is not worried about being surpassed, after all, in this field, Google and IBM have a monopoly on all related technologies, but now it is different... A person he least wanted to meet, suddenly broke into the field of quantum computers.

Fifty qubits,

He actually got a ticket to 'quantum supremacy'.

"Damn it!"

"How did this happen?" Professor Merck frowned, and through a few bits of content, he knew that Xu Mang relied on graphene to achieve qubits using a 'Xu Yang structure', and that was all there was to it.

At this point,

Professor Merck was depressed, having previously studied the use of graphene in quantum computing devices, but he and his team were unable to solve the problem of time coherence.

However, I never expected that Xu Mang, who was from Huaguo, would solve this problem and... A method called 'poplar structure' is also adopted to achieve qubits directly on graphene, which... What's going on here?

What is the structure of Xu Yang?

Then

Professor Merck thought of a terrible thing, that it was possible that Xu Mang had found a structural form that surpassed the Josephson knot.

Bang bang bang,

There was a knock on the office door, and for a moment... A young man appears in front of Professor Merck.

"Professor!"

"Our 'Fox Tail Pine' chip... Ran into a little trouble. The young man said helplessly: "Theoretically, the matrix arrangement of nearest neighbor coupling is a necessary condition for surface coding quantum error correction, but... There seems to be a limitation in packaging technology. ”

"What?"

"Flip welding is not good?" asked Professor Merck in surprise.

"Yes!"

"We found a lot of problems when welding, mainly in the material..."The young man glanced at Merck and said cautiously: "We lack a material, although the structure of the material has been roughly determined through experiments, but..."

After a pause,

The young man continued: "But we don't have a very critical glue. ”

"Adhesive?"

"What adhesive?" asked Professor Merck.

"It's just... For a while, the young man didn't know how to speak, organized his words, and said: "The photoresist material adhesive mastered by Xu Mang of Huaguo, we lack this adhesive. ”

Hearing these words, Professor Merck's face was like ashes, this adhesive is only mastered by Xu Mang in the world, the price is simply ridiculously expensive, and... The most important thing is that he will not sell to European and American companies at all.

What to do?

The lack of this adhesive means that the 'foxtail pine' chip will fail.

"Professor..."

"Will this project be terminated?" the young man asked with a worried look on his face, "This project... We've put a lot of effort into it, and if we stop it, we'll be affected a lot. ”

"I'll figure it out. Professor Merck said.

Followed by

Merck was the only one left in the office, and he was in a state of confusion, and if he was lucky, Xu Mang would sell him this adhesive, and he would definitely make a lot of unacceptable demands.

This has not happened before, and MIT still circulates the story of Xu Mang modifying STM technology and dividing it into two to carry out technical fraud.

Technical blackmail...

I never thought that an American multinational technology company would encounter technological blackmail.

"Ugh..."

Professor Merck sighed and found Professor Smith of Princeton University from the phone book, and heard that Professor Smith and Xu Mang had a good relationship, and Merck hoped that Professor Smith could communicate with Xu Mang and sell him a little adhesive.

soon

The call went through.

"Smith, it's... Merck. Professor Merck said.

"Oh?"

"Is there something wrong with me? Merck. Smith asked curiously.

"You..."

"Can you help me contact Xu Mang?" Merck said helplessly, "I need his help." ”

After hearing Merck's words, Smith couldn't help but fall into silence, and after a long time, he said seriously: "If you are willing to pay a huge price, I can help you contact Xu Mang." ”

......