Quantum computers use qubit (quantum bits) to perform every task. Following the bizarre quantum rules, a qubit can hold more information than the traditional (presently used in every electronic system) bits.

Intel has earned a bad reputation for the infamous processor bugs – Meltdown and Spectre. The company also failed to bring up a usable microcode update to fix the flaws. However, Intel has really made a progress in the field of quantum computing. The company has very recently developed a “spin qubit” chip combined with QuTech using the traditional silicon.

Silicon is one of the most available elements that’s a perfect semiconductor. Every company use silicon to create all the processors and different electronic devices. If silicon is viable for creating quantum computers, it’s obviously a good news for implementing the future computers.

Intel has been exploring the concept of spin qubit for quite a time alongside the superconducting qubits. The firm notes that it resembles the present semiconductor electronics very much.

What Spin Qubit is

Spin qubits use the spin of an electron for the info. Electron’s spin can be controlled by using tiny microwave pulses. As we know about the electron, the spin can be called “up” or “down” for corresponding with the classic binary values – 0 and 1. Interestingly, an electron can also be in the state of superposition – a spin that’s “up” and “down” at the same time. This capability is quite groundbreaking that can allow computing massive sets of data. Using the electron superposition, future processors are going to be many times faster than today’s modern processors.

Advantages of Spin Qubits

Quantum world is quite bizarre. The rules and regulations work very differently from our everyday rules, although the quantum rules are at the core of everything. Using spin qubits provide a lot of advantages against the quantum bizarreness.

First of all, qubits are very fragile. Even the slightest noise or unwanted observation of the quantum can break the data. Superconductive qubits require a very cold temperature to work and the physical size of the machine isn’t something to use at home.

Spin qubits solve most of the problems described above. As these qubits are silicon-based, the physical size remains small & can hold together for a longer time period (in theory). Spin qubits remain intact at a relatively high temperature, drastically reducing the complexity of the system. Moreover, electrons are quite easy to control and we have a better understanding of this particle.

Intel is working with QuTech on this research. However, the spin qubit is still the early stages. Spin qubits are more promising than superconductive qubits and if the research is successful, we can expect commercial quantum computers sooner than anticipated.

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With current encryption system, the data are encrypted using an encryption key. Without the key, the data are gibberish to anyone. Despite that, data can be decrypted using the “Brute Force” cracking. It’s a method of trying all the possible combination of the secret key to read the data. With current hardware and powerful encryption, this process would take decades to complete. With quantum computers, such cracking will be easier to perform.

Why are quantum computers estimated fast? Today’s techs – processors and memories – use electrons as the data transmitter. The calculations are done using bits/binary digits that can hold only one value – 1 or 0. The quantum computers use quantum bits, aka qubits. Qubits can be 1 and 0 simultaneously, allowing to perform two calculations at once. The invented quantum data encryption is “theoretically” hack-proof. It’s able to create & distribute encryption codes at megabit/s rate, 5x – 10x faster than today’s method.

For this system to work, both sender and receiver must have access to the same key while keeping it secret. Here, QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) uses the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics – the change of properties of matter when intercepted, alarming both parties about the existence of a security breach. However, the biggest issue in this implementation is the speed. According to Nurul Taimur Islam, a graduate student in Physics at Duke, the transmission speed of keys is relatively slower than current systems – 10 to 100s of kilobits/s. It’s too slow for the practical usage of most of the tasks.

Like most other QKD systems, the key transmitter of Taimur utilizes a weakened laser to encode info on every photon. They invented a better technique to encode more info per photon, making transmission faster. By adjusting the time of photon release and using the “phase” property of photons, this method can encode 2 bits per photon. Combined with ultra-fine & fast detectors developed by Jungsang Kim. He is a professor of electrical & computer engineering at Duke and Clinton Cahall, the graduate student in electrical and computer engineering boosts the transmission speed 10x faster than traditional systems.

In a (theoretically) perfect world, QKD is completely secured. Any security breaches in the perfect world will notify both the sender and receiver of the breach. However, in the real world, it’s not perfect at all and so, opens up ample opportunity for hackers to exploit those flaws. Researchers are ongoing to fix those up. The system developed by the team require common hardware that is already available commercially. That’s a huge step forward. Those data can be easily transmitted using existing, general optical fibers to anywhere.

According to Nurul Taimur Islam, all the equipment except the single photon detector is already industrially available and with some engineering, it’s possible to pack them into a box as big as a computer CPU. Quantum computers are already in action in the labs but not so powerful. However, for commercial implementation, scientists are working really hard. Tech giants like Google, IBM, and Microsoft etc. are working hard on it. It might seem unrealistic, but we might get our first commercial quantum computer in the next decade.

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