Quantum Computing Brings New Error Correction Challenges

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One major barrier to reaching quantum computing's disruptive potential is its high susceptibility to noise and calibration.

www.eetasia.com, Dec. 26, 2022 – 

Many in the quantum computing industry have boasted about the disruptive potential of quantum computers to empower rapid growth and innovation in many fields including medicine, materials science, and finance. However, one major barrier to reaching this potential is quantum computing's high susceptibility to noise and calibration.

Our ability to manage or reduce the error rates in quantum computers will determine the pace at which we reach the capacity to begin leveraging quantum computers for these innovative leaps. If we can understand the impact of errors and how well current techniques can compensate for them, we can gain insight into what stage of development the quantum computing industry has reached.

How are quantum computing errors different from classical computing errors?

Computing devices deal with the processing of information. Classical computers store information and perform operations on bits, which are hardware memory elements with two discrete states labeled 0 and 1. These computers perform operations by manipulating information stored on bits according to program specifications.

Quantum computers have a hardware component that is analogous to the classical "bit," a "qubit" (or quantum bit). Qubits can store the same binary states allowed by a conventional computer, but quantum mechanical features–namely superposition and entanglement– also allow for additional states to be stored and manipulated. Researchers posit that this extra capacity introduced by quantum mechanics will allow quantum computers to achieve performance that is impossible for classical computers–notably, quantum computing algorithms aim to solve dense, combinatoric problems that would require a prohibitively large amount of time for their classical counterparts.

A computing error, quantum or not, is any undesired operation that replaces the state of memory with another state. In conventional computers, an error on a single bit is limited to an accidental flip from 0 to 1, or from 1 to 0. Since additional states are featured beyond sequences of bits in quantum computing, errors can take many more forms. There are more quantum states than conventional bit sequences, leaving room for more types of undesired state alterations.

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