Google unveils plans to build its own quantum computer

MIT Technology Review : After having supported quantum computing company D-Wave and purchased one of the company’s computers, Google is now going to try to build one of its own. It has hired John Martinis of the University of California, Santa Barbara, to lead a new lab to develop the quantum hardware. Martinis recently published a paper that evaluated the effectiveness of D-Wave’s computer. He found that, although the computer does use quantum structures, the process by which it solves the specific set of problems for which it is designed is not an improvement over that of conventional machines. He also led a research group that produced one of the major steps forward in traditional quantum computing: the connecting of five qubits into a single system with relatively low error rates. The initial goal of Google’s lab will be to develop its own versions of the hardware inside D-Wave’s computers. However, Google still intends to continue its support of D-Wave.