Israel launches the country's first quantum computer

In mid-February, the Israeli Ministry of Defense's Directorate General of Defense Research and Development (MAFAT) and the Innovation Agency announced that they would invest about NIS 200 million (about $62 million) in building Israel's first quantum computer. However, just a month later, Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science announced the launch of the country's first quantum computer. Related papers have been published in PRX Quantum [1].

This is a 5-qubit ion trap quantum computer. Professor Roee Ozeri, who led the project, said this was an important step towards a 64-qubit quantum computer in the next 1 to 2 years.

The computing power of a 64-bit quantum computer has far surpassed the existing state-of-the-art classical computers, he said. It is expected to demonstrate quantum superiority, so far only possible with computers built in two labs at Google and the University of Science and Technology of China.

Prof. Roee Ozeri

Quantum computing, once fully mature, is expected to revolutionize not only computing speeds, but also a variety of military strategy and detection issues, as well as massive economies of scale, and forcing the entire Internet to change its underlying encryption baseline.

In a statement, Weizmann said that while "building a working quantum computer is such a daunting venture that many believe it is just a matter of tech giants and superpowers on a scale that is beyond Israel's reach. ”, but Ozeri disagreed.

In fact, says Ozeri: "One of the world's first computers, the WEIZAC, was built at the Weizmann Institute in the 1950s when Israel had nothing but swamps and camels. Today, Israel is a technological powerhouse, and there's no reason why we shouldn't be quantum A frontrunner in the computing race." In honor of WEIZAC, the team's next-generation 64-bit quantum computer will be named WeizQC.

For the 5-qubit quantum computer, Ozeri said, "it's not just size that matters, but fidelity -- the ability of the system to perform quantum logic operations," which is critical. This is a general-purpose quantum computer - on which any quantum algorithm can be implemented, and has now been used to "compute the behavior of certain solid-state systems" for academic research.

Optical components needed to generate laser pulses that can control trapped ions

The device is one of about 30 quantum computers in various stages in the world, and one of fewer than 10 that use ion traps, Ozeri said. An ion trap is an advanced technology that uses magnetic or/and electric fields to confine ions in a small space. Trapped ions could form the basis of qubits.

Professor Ozeri has been researching quantum computing since 2003, established his own team in 2007, and has focused on building quantum computers for the past two years. Building a quantum computer involves a wide range of physical and engineering building blocks, and after developing all the individual parts for about 10 years, his team can finally focus on building the machine, he said.

Despite Weizmann's success, Ozeri said it is still important for the government to build more large-scale quantum computers and invest in quantum initiatives in various related quantum fields. "Ensuring our leadership in this technology area."

Link:

[1] https://journals.aps.org/prxquantum/abstract/10.1103/PRXQuantum.3.010347

[2] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-702015

[3] https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/weizmann-institute-researchers-present-israels-first-quantum-computer/2022/03/22/

[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-huge-leap-israeli-researchers-build-countrys-first-quantum-computer/