Today’s computers routinely do things we wouldn’t have believed possible even a decade
ago.
But the world faces some challenges that are so complex that today’s best computers would
still need the lifetime of the universe to solve them.
That’s where quantum computing comes in.
Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, that researchers believe will be able to process
information exponentially faster than any computer we have today.
If we can build a robust, scalable quantum computer, researchers believe the computer
will be able to help us solve some of the toughest problems facing humanity, from climate
change to global hunger.
Hi.
I’m Allison Linn, and it’s my job is to tell stories about the most innovative work
Microsoft is doing.
Today, I’m here in Lyngby, Denmark, where we recently opened one of six labs we have
all around the world that are just devoted to quantum computing.
Where I’m standing now, the raw materials for that quantum bit, or qubit, we talked
about would be leaving the clean room and entering the quantum fabrication line.
The whole quantum fabrication lab is just behind this wall.
So, let’s go inside and see what they’re doing.
I’m here with Peter Krogstrup, and he’s the scientific director of this lab.
And, Peter, I was hoping you could start by talking a bit about how you got into quantum
physics.
Yeah, that’s a good question.
It was not like I had a path.
I started as a musician and played music throughout the ‘80s.
But then I went back to school studying physics and from there it just took this direction
towards quantum computing and it’s been an amazing ride until now.
So, tell us a little bit about what you guys are trying to accomplish in this lab.
So, we are trying to build the qubits for the quantum computer we are trying to build.
And to make qubits you need, there’s a lot of requirements to build the materials for
the qubits, it has to be ultra-clean, it has to be in the right geometries, right material
choices and so on and you have to – today we don’t really have the fabrication equipment
available to build these complex materials.
So, what we are looking at here is really something we have designed over several years
to get to this stage of having material ready to build the complex qubit material solutions
we are looking for.
OK, so you had to invent all the stuff in order to make all those qubits.
That’s true.
Yeah.
What’s going on underneath this tinfoil here?
It’s not like we are trying to hide anything with the tinfoil.
We are baking out this section of the system because when you bake out and pump on it at
the same time you make it cleaner and it’s all about purity, really.
Once you have decided on what materials you want, what geometries you want to build then
it’s all about making it as pure and defect-free as possible.
For that, you need ultra-clean conditions.
So right now, we are spending a month baking out the system, so it becomes cleaner.
Right now, inside here we are baking at 200 degrees, when we are ready to grow, we run
liquid nitrogen through the walls and then it becomes minus 200 degrees.
So, when we grow our crystals, the environment around the actual crystal growth and the atoms
we’re using is ultra-clean.
Microsoft’s approach to quantum computing is a little bit different.
We’re building what’s called a topological qubit.
And, Peter, can you explain what a topological qubit is and how it’s different from a regular
qubit.
Yeah, regular qubits have the disadvantage of being very fragile.
They interact with the environment very easily, so you lose the information from the quantum
state very fast, faster than you want.
Topological qubits have the potential to be much more stable in nature.
But it’s a lot a bit more difficult to build the materials that make the topological states.
So that’s the chance we’re taking and why we built this complex machine.
To try to put all of the different layers together.
Each layer has its own requirements.
So, we have to be sure that in order to get the right properties in the system we go down
to the end here and make sure the properties of each of the component that makes up the
topological qubit, keeping everything in a vacuum and that loop will be faster than what
we’re used to.
Where to things go from here, Peter?
Are we going to end up with quantum computers in our pockets?
That’s very unlikely because quantum computers only work if you cool them to absolute zero
and that’s minus 273 degrees.
It’s not very suitable for your pocket.
But we will have them placed in data centers where we have the cryogenic cooling facilities
and then we will get our problems solved via the cloud.
Got it.
OK.
And what are you expecting that people will use quantum computers for?
That’s difficult to predict actually because it will open whole new fields probably.
It’s a fundamentally different way of computing than what we are used to, so it will open
a lot of new fields that’s for sure.
We know already now that there are certain problems, we can solve faster because we’re
already developed and have an idea of the algorithms to solve certain problems now with
a quantum computer and we can see that they are exponentially faster than classic computers.
But kind of predicting what people will use them for in the future is too early.
It has a huge potential.
Well, thank you so much for giving us a tour of your lab, Peter.
We hope that you’ll stick around and explore the space a little bit longer.