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Supercomputing

Amazon Uses Quantum 'Cat States' With Error Correction (arstechnica.com) 11

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Following up on Microsoft's announcement of a qubit based on completely new physics, Amazon is publishing a paper describing a very different take on quantum computing hardware. The system mixes two different types of qubit hardware to improve the stability of the quantum information they hold. The idea is that one type of qubit is resistant to errors, while the second can be used for implementing an error-correction code that catches the problems that do happen. While there have been more effective demonstrations of error correction in the past, a number of companies are betting that Amazon's general approach is the best route to getting logical qubits that are capable of complex algorithms. So, in that sense, it's an important proof of principle. Amazon's quantum computing approach combines cat qubits for data storage and transmons for error correction.

Cat qubits are quantum bits that distribute their superposition state across multiple photons in a resonator, making them highly resistant to bit flip errors. Transmons are superconducting qubits that help detect and correct phase flip errors by enabling weak measurements without destroying the quantum state. Meanwhile, a phase flip is a quantum error that alters the relative phase of a qubit's superposition state without changing its probability distribution. Unlike a bit flip, which swaps a qubit's state probabilities, a phase flip changes how the quantum states interfere, potentially disrupting quantum computations.

By alternating cat qubits with transmons, Amazon reduces the number of hardware qubits needed for error correction. Their tests show that increasing qubits lowers the error rate, proving the system's effectiveness. However, rare bit flips still cause entire logical qubits to fail, and transmons remain prone to both bit and phase flips. If you're still entangled in this story without decohering into pure quantum chaos, kudos to you!
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Amazon Uses Quantum 'Cat States' With Error Correction

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  • In all those recent publications about quantum computers, I sense the anxiety that gullible investors have increasingly shifted on pouring their money now into "AI" companies, rather than quantum computer companies. And yet they have nothing much to show, especially not quantum-computers that could perform any useful calculation faster than conventional hardware.
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The rich just have too much money. If you already have 12 mansions you probably don't need 13, so you put the extra money in long-shot investments.

      Tax the rich to normal levels, and bubbles will be smaller.

      • The rich just have too much money. If you already have 12 mansions you probably don't need 13, so you put the extra money in long-shot investments.

        If Elon would just get his shit in gear the rich would have a new focus and be buying space yachts from him to suck up some of that money. Look at how many ocean vessels some of those assholes own. If you give them the chance, they'll buy space hoppers just to show off. He needs to focus more on that and less on dismantling the entire US government.

        Tax the rich to normal levels, and bubbles will be smaller.

        Agreed. I always find it hilarious that the people claiming they want things to be like the 1950s and 1960s immediately about-face when asked how they'd feel abo

    • Perhaps not, but I bet they can factor the number 15 really well.

  • Well with Amazon, you don't know whether you have received your package until you open the box...

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:46PM (#65197813)

    So the plan is to hand over all of our data, robot control, and decision making to cats? We're going to give all that power to the one animal feigning domestication as a ruse to enslave us all?

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Meow 9000 won't let humans back in the ship.

    • We're going to give all that power to the one animal feigning domestication as a ruse to enslave us all?

      I think you're several centuries too late to worry about that now.

      Gotta go, I think I hear paws scratching at the door.

I am here by the will of the people and I won't leave until I get my raincoat back. - a slogan of the anarchists in Richard Kadrey's "Metrophage"

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