Aussie scientists confirm efficacy of silicon for quantum computing

A team of Aussie scientists have made a world-first breakthrough, proving for the first time the accuracy of silicon two-qubit operations and confirming the promise of silicon for the future of quantum computing.

The study involved researchers from the University of New South Wales led by Prof. Andrew Dzurak.

"All quantum computations can be made up of one-qubit operations and two-qubit operations, they're the central building blocks of quantum computing," Dzurak explained.

"Once you've got those, you can perform any computation you want, but the accuracy of both operations needs to be very high."

The team were able to achieve an average two-qubit gate fidelity of 98 percent in silicon, a high enough level of accuracy to bring full-scale quantum computers one step closer to reality.

Dzurak says that the success of the study is proof that silicon as a technology platform is ideal for scaling up to the large numbers of qubits needed for universal quantum computing.

While silicon has been used for close to 60 years in the computing industry, it was not yet known if it would be readily adaptable to the new quantum technology.

"The fact that it is near 99 percent puts it in the ballpark we need, and there are excellent prospects for further improvement," Dzurak said.

"We think that we'll achieve significantly higher fidelities in the near future, opening the path to full-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computation."

UNSW Dean of Engineering Prof. Mark Hoffman says that the team is leading the world in the process of taking quantum computing from theory to practice.

"Quantum computing is this century's space race, and Sydney is leading the charge," Hoffman said.

"This milestone is another step towards realizing a large-scale quantum computer, and it reinforces the fact that silicon is an extremely attractive approach that we believe will get UNSW there first."