[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: Now the Google Quantum AI campus in California
gives us a glimpse into the future.
It houses the kind of quantum computers
that can perform a calculation in 200 seconds
that the team measured would take 10,000 years
on a classical supercomputer.
The aim is to give us a tool that
can do entirely new kinds of computation to serve humanity.
Here's its engineer, Erik Lucero,
to give us an exclusive tour of the lab.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ERIK LUCERO: Hi everyone.
My name is Erik Lucero.
I'm pleased to have you here at the Quantum AI campus.
I'm going to walk you around, show you a bit
about not only the history of how we got here,
show you a little bit more about the space in the lab
and where we're headed.
So I love to start with our Sycamore quantum processors.
Behind this piece of metal right here,
on this circuit board and all these
connectors that we have is the actual quantum processor.
This system gets mounted into our cryostat,
and that system we're going to see in full scale--
just a moment-- inside the lab.
So it's also a pleasure to have you
here for all the reasons we can show some of the collaborations
that we've had, from our 9 qubit systems that have now
scaled up to, say, beyond 54.
Here's a nice example of one of our systems
that we have that was 22 qubits.
And it's really cool because all of these
will be put together in the lab that you're about to see.
So I'm going to take you there.
So come with me.
Now I'm going to show you where we take those Sycamore
processors that I showed you earlier
and install them into the cryostat.
So we're going to walk over to one of my favorite systems
here.
This little cryostat is what we use to cool those systems down
to really a couple orders of magnitude colder than space.
Basically, each one of these metal
stages that you see here, from this edge all the way down,
kind of in this layer cake, the very bottom of that is what
we call the mixing chamber.
At that point there is where we mount the quantum processor,
that Sycamore system that I showed you earlier,
and it thermalizes to that plate.
That plate gets to 10 millikelvin.
That's really cold.
That's some of the coldest places in the universe.
That's two orders of magnitude colder than between two
galaxies.
All of that system runs all the way
up the top where we have wires that come out.
And you can see over here on our control system,
those are custom control electronics
that our team, engineers here at Google,
have done and designed specifically
to control the quantum processor inside.
I like to think of them as a music player,
playing music to the qubits.
There's some analog pulses that come down
and that musical score gets played through those wires
all the way down to those qubits.
There's a lot of different skill sets all over the world
that these people are coming from to join the team
and think about, what is a quantum computer actually going
to serve everyone?
And how do we do that responsibly for the world
and make this a tool for humanity?
All right, so now I'm going to tell you a little bit more
about what the space is going to look
like as we scale in the future.
Today, we are here right now at this point
where we've just gotten past the beyond classical experiment.
And we're headed towards these next milestones
to build an error-corrected logical qubit,
and finally to an error-corrected quantum
computer.
Now this space will grow and we've really
designed it to be the kind of place
where we can land a number of these milestones along the way.
Each one of these cryostats are systems
that our team has spent many, many hours in design
and customizations to make some of the most powerful quantum
computers in the world.
We can do the impossible.
And we look at quantum computing, something
that we look at as maybe it's a 10-year investment.
And at the other end of that will be this tool for humanity.
And I think it's an important part of that style
of creativity that is not just to a scientist's creativity
or just an artist's.
It's actually that combination of both
that gives this the ability to be inventing the future.
So it's been a pleasure to share with you all this space.
I can't wait to show it to you in person
and to see this place come together
for an error-corrected logical qubit.
Until then, take care.
I'll see you all later.
SPEAKER: And Erik, our very own Q from the quantum lab,
joins us live.
Hi, Erik.
ERIK LUCERO: How you doing?
Good to be here.
SPEAKER: Good to see you.
Now this sounds like a kind of computer
that will usher in developments that we only dreamed
were possibilities.
ERIK LUCERO: Yes, I would agree with you.
And I'd also say that it's-- the kind of thing that I get
excited about is the developments that we maybe even
haven't dreamt of yet, as a new tool begets new ideas.
So it's not just that these quantum computers are faster
at particular problems.
It's that they're fundamentally computing in a whole new way.
And it's closer to how nature works.
It's actually tapping into the world of quantum mechanics.
SPEAKER: And how does a quantum computer work?
And how is it different from classical computing?
ERIK LUCERO: Yeah, that's a great question.
In classical computing, we have the fundamental building
blocks are bits.
And these can be either 0 or 1, like a switch.
So 0 or 1.
In quantum computing, we use these quantum bits,
or qubits for short.
Qubits can be in a superposition of state,
so they can be actually a combination of 0 and 1
at the same time.
So, say, anywhere on this sphere, 0 is pointing up.
1 is pointing down.
I could be in a superposition of states.
And this superposition, it invites us into, I'd say,
a richer computational space, where
we can perform more complex computations.
SPEAKER: So what kind of computations
are we talking about?
So for what?
ERIK LUCERO: Yeah, right.
That's a great question.
Well, let me start with emphasizing that nature--
fundamentally, the physical world--
is quantum mechanical.
So if we want to predict, say, molecules
or some amazing new materials, we
can actually use a quantum computer
because it's actually mapping to how Mother Nature works.
It's fundamentally working with the quantum mechanics
underneath.
So, for example, these new materials
may be lighter batteries, more efficient batteries,
lower ways of reducing the carbon output
from, say, making fertilizer to feed the world.
So these are all ways that we can model Mother Nature much
better when we use the quantum computer that we're
building here at Google.
SPEAKER: So nature seems to be incredibly complex.
But is the idea that you actually string together
lots of qubits, and that allows you to do these incredibly
complex computations?
ERIK LUCERO: Yes, but it's not just quite that easy.
What we actually need to do is, at first,
we have to show that we can show that quantum error
correction works.
So then we will scale up the number of physical qubits.
So ultimately, we want to show that we can create
what's called a logical qubit.
We create that by basically stringing together
a fabric of these physical qubits with enough,
I'd say, exquisite control of those systems
so that we can actually show that this error
correction works.
And then once we've shown that, we
can then scale up all these logical qubits
to create a full error-corrected quantum computer.
SPEAKER: It's fascinating stuff.
What made you want to become an inventor?
ERIK LUCERO: Wow.
I would say that it was, at the very beginning of my life,
being able to work on projects with my hands.
I remember my father getting me up early in the mornings
to even do big projects around the house.
And then I think mentor after mentor--
I had a really amazing mentor in college who brought me
into the lab and we started to actually make
experiments for the cryogenic dark matter
search, which then led to my introduction
to quantum computing.
And ever since, I've been able to actually bring things
into existence from the atom scale
all the way up to a building and campus scale.
It's something I love to do, is invent the future.
SPEAKER: Well, it's amazing to meet you, Erik.
Thank you so much for explaining something that's so complex,
and keep up the extraordinary work.
Thank you.
ERIK LUCERO: Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.