China has successfully mass-produced 1,500 batches of quantum chips, with performance far exceeding that of traditional chips. Multiple companies are positioning themselves in quantum technology, involving fields such as quantum communication and quantum computing, propelling the rapid development of the quantum technology market. It is projected that by 2030, the global quantum chip market size is expected to reach trillions of dollars.

Why develop quantum chips?

There are various reasons why companies are developing quantum chips, with the main reason being that quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize the field of computation and solve certain problems that traditional computers essentially cannot.

Solving complex problems: Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems that traditional computers currently cannot. This includes tasks such as optimization, cryptography, materials science, and drug development.

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Quantum advantage: Companies aim to achieve "quantum advantage," where quantum computers can perform specific tasks faster or more efficiently than traditional computers. This could lead to breakthroughs in various industries such as finance, logistics, and healthcare.

Competitive advantage: Companies view quantum computing as a source of competitive advantage. Being at the forefront of quantum technology can give them an edge in their respective industries and open up new business opportunities.

Due to the above benefits, major companies have positioned themselves in quantum chips.

Who is developing them?

IBM has released two new types of quantum chips, Condor and Heron, using superconducting and ion trap technologies, respectively. However, the biggest challenge in superconducting quantum computing is quantum entanglement. QuEra's new quantum computer uses silicon spin qubit technology, with high coherence time and low error rates, surpassing IBM's Condor chip. QuEra's new quantum computer adopts a design with 48 logical quantum bits and uses a modular design approach, allowing for the construction of larger-scale quantum computers. This achievement is funded by the U.S. government and has a profound impact on global scientific and technological development and the competitive landscape.

In addition, QuEra's new quantum computer also adopts a modular design. This means that different modules can be connected together to build larger-scale quantum computers. This design approach is similar to the current mainstream superconducting quantum computers, but QuEra's new quantum computer has higher coherence time and lower error rates, thus having a performance advantage.Finally, QuEra's new quantum computer is led by Harvard University, with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Medium-Scale Noisy Quantum Optimization program. This indicates that the US government has invested a significant amount of money and resources in the field of quantum computing to maintain its leading position. At the same time, it also implies that other countries need to invest a large amount of money and resources in this field to maintain their competitiveness.

QuEra's new quantum computer adopts a different technical route and design scheme, with higher coherence time and lower error rates, making it more advantageous in performance. This is not only of great significance to the US government and enterprises in the fields of information security and financial technology, but it will also have a profound impact on the development of global technology and the competitive landscape. Therefore, we should closely follow the latest developments and technological breakthroughs in this field, in order to better promote the development and progress of global technology. For humanity, this is definitely a huge step forward, but it can also be said to be bad news. Because quantum computers can easily crack the encryption protocols used by governments, banks, and enterprises around the world, from national secrets to social security numbers, quantum computers can crack them all. This means that there will be no secrets in the world.

Google's Bristlecone is a quantum processor designed to demonstrate quantum supremacy, which is an important milestone in quantum computing. Although it is mainly a research tool, it demonstrates the progress of quantum hardware. It is important to quantify the capabilities of a quantum processor before studying specific applications. Google's theory team has developed a benchmarking tool for this task. They can assign a single system error by applying random quantum circuits to the device, and check the output distribution of sampling through a classical simulation. If the operational error of a quantum processor is small enough, it can surpass a classical supercomputer on a well-defined computer science problem, which is an achievement known as "quantum supremacy". These random circuits must be large in both qubits and computational length (depth). Although no one has achieved this goal yet, Google's calculation of quantum supremacy can be achieved with 49 qubits, a circuit depth of more than 40 qubits, and an error of less than 0.5% for two-qubit gates. Google believes that the experimental proof that quantum processors are superior to supercomputers will be a watershed in this field, and it remains one of their main goals.

Quantum computing company Rigetti provides cloud access to its quantum processors and a quantum development environment called Forest. They have developed quantum chips such as Aspen-9 and Aspen-9Q.

Honeywell has developed a quantum computer that is different from many other quantum processor architectures. Their devices are based on ion trapping technology and have launched various quantum chips for different purposes.

Many domestic companies are also laying out quantum technology, involving quantum communication, quantum computing and other fields, promoting the rapid development of the quantum technology market.

Our country announced the successful mass production of up to 1500 batches of quantum chips, which shocked the world. This quantum masterpiece, known as the "Chinese super chip", has a strong performance, far exceeding traditional silicon-based chips, with a thousand times higher efficiency, and the power consumption is almost negligible, only one ninetieth of the traditional chip.

For example, Tianhe Defense's main business is "communication electronics" and "new generation integrated electronic information (Tianrong project)" three major business systems and military equipment, 5G RF, IoT perception, industry big data, digital ocean five major business segments. The company's subsidiaries have conducted preliminary research and layout based on existing businesses, focusing on the development and experimentation of ultra-low temperature devices used in quantum communication, and have carried out ultra-low temperature environmental experiments on related devices.

Ke Da Guo Chuang Company has invested in Guo Yi Quantum, which is a world-renowned quantum technology technology company.

Tongniu Information and Guo Ke Quantum have signed a strategic cooperation agreement, and the two parties will work closely to actively promote the marketization and industrialization process of quantum communication technology, strengthen cooperation in link encryption, quantum applications, and jointly expand the cloud security service market.On September 27, 2017, Sugon and Quantum Network held a strategic cooperation signing ceremony in Beijing. The two parties will join hands with industrial chain partners to jointly create a quantum communication industry ecosystem. This cooperation is an important practice in promoting the industrialization of quantum communication in China and also marks the official entry of Sugon, as the "national team" of the information industry, into the quantum communication field. The two parties jointly developed the world's first cloud security integrated machine based on quantum communication, QC Server, which was released with great fanfare. This is another global lead in the application and support fields after China's quantum secure communication has taken a leading position in the scientific research field.

Haofeng Technology has the copyright of the quantum application security service platform software, but how to form industrialization in the field of quantum application is still in the exploratory stage.

Jida Zhengyuan has made certain progress in the research of anti-quantum cryptographic algorithms, realizing the algorithm of anti-quantum signature, and successfully developed the key generation and certificate issuance function of the hybrid mode of traditional cryptography and anti-quantum cryptography, completing the combination of anti-quantum algorithms and digital certificate technology.

How does quantum supremacy dominate?

In the past decade, people have been committed to developing quantum computers, which can greatly speed up some fields of calculation, thereby completely changing the fields of physics, medicine, biology, artificial intelligence, and cryptography. Researchers have used advanced quantum computer prototypes as proof of concept and have demonstrated "quantum supremacy," that is, calculating results that the fastest traditional supercomputers need thousands of years to complete in a few seconds.

Although such demonstrations undoubtedly mark a technological milestone, tasks completed at unimaginable speeds do not necessarily predict the commercialization of quantum computers in the short term. To ensure the continuous development of quantum technology in the next decade, quantum computing hardware needs to make progress in materials and manufacturing processes, similar to the continuous expansion of transistor technology that drives traditional computing.

Intel has a leading advantage in realizing quantum bit chips on 300mm wafers. Semiconductor CMOS technology can compress tens of billions of transistors onto traditional computer chips produced by 300mm wafers, and Intel believes that the same technology can be replicated to build quantum computers capable of dealing with practical applications. This method is feasible because silicon spin quantum bits have many similarities with semiconductor transistors, which constitute the building functional blocks of microprocessors. The size of spin quantum bits is very small, about 100 nanometers, which makes them more dense than other types of quantum bits, thus enabling more complex quantum computers on a single chip. Intel's manufacturing method uses extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, which is currently commonly used for manufacturing large quantities of chips for the computing industry.

Intel's 300mm silicon spin quantum bit wafer

To achieve a fault-tolerant quantum computer with millions of uniform and consistent error-correcting quantum bits, highly reliable manufacturing processes are required, which can only be carried out in well-established wafer production bases. Intel points out that the wafers it ships annually contain about 800 trillion (800 x 10^15) transistors. At this rate, by 2025, this number will exceed the total number of human cells on Earth.

Tunnel Falls is Intel's most advanced silicon spin quantum bit chip to date, drawing on the company's decades of expertise in transistor design and manufacturing. This quantum bit silicon chip is manufactured on 300mm wafers at the D1 manufacturing plant in Hillsboro, Oregon, marking the next step towards building a full-stack commercial quantum computing system for use by the quantum research and academic community that lacks large-scale manufacturing machines. The use of Tunnel Falls, coupled with the use of Intel's Quantum Software Development Kit (QSDK), is a tangible effort to democratize quantum computing research.At the same time, by leveraging advanced CMOS production lines, Intel can utilize innovative process control technologies to enhance yield and performance. For instance, Intel claims that the Tunnel Falls 12-qubit devices achieve a wafer-level yield of 95%, with voltage uniformity comparable to CMOS logic processes, providing over 24,000 quantum dot devices per wafer. Each 12-dot chip can form 4 to 12 qubits, which can be isolated and utilized simultaneously, depending on how the research laboratory operates its system.