Google Quantum AI has announced it will expand its quantum computing research to include neutral atom quantum computing, alongside its existing work in superconducting quantum computers.
In its blog announcement, Google said it will accelerate its timeline to near-term milestones, and exploit the complementary strengths of two modalities.
Superconducting qubits, said Google, have already scaled to circuits with millions of gate and measurement cycles, where each cycle takes just a microsecond. Neutral atoms, meanwhile, have scaled to arrays with about ten thousand qubits. Although neutral atoms are slower, they make up their slower cycle times — measured in milliseconds — with a flexible, any-to-any connectivity graph that allows for efficient algorithms and error-correcting codes. While neutral atoms are challenged to demonstrate deep circuits with many cycles, the superconducting modality has to demonstrate computing architectures with tens of thousands of qubits; superconducting processors are easier to scale in the time dimension (circuit depth), while neutral atoms are easier to scale in the space dimension (qubit count). By Investing in both approaches, Google aims to speed up its roadmap by cross-pollinating research and engineering breakthroughs.
Google’s research program
The neutral atoms program is built on three critical pillars:
- Quantum Error Correction (QEC): Adapting error correction to the connectivity of neutral atom arrays, resulting in low space and time overheads for fault-tolerant architectures.
- Modeling and Simulation: Utilizing Google’s compute resources and model-based design to simulate hardware architectures, optimize error budgets and refine component targets.
- Experimental Hardware Development: Realizing the hardware capabilities to manipulate atomic qubits at application scale with fault-tolerant performance.
Leading the experimental charge will be Dr. Adam Kaufman, who is a JILA Fellow and CU Boulder faculty, with an affiliation in the Physics Department at CU Boulder. Adam states, “I am thrilled to join Google’s world-leading program in quantum computing, and to expand that leadership to a new and highly promising platform of neutral atoms.” Google’s neutral atom program will also collaborate with its portfolio company QuEra.
