Abstract

The idea to develop a quantum computer was presented by Feynman and others in the early 80s, and in this talk I will present the numerous advances accomplished in this area over the past 4 decades. Several architectures for quantum computing are known, employing Si atoms in a P medium, trapped ions, quantum dots, anyons, superconductor currents, or others as the qubit carriers. I will cover the operational modes of the most common proposed quantum computing devices, as well as the scientific and engineering difficulties which currently prevent large-scale quantum computing (decoherence of qubits, quantum error-correction). In recent years the field of quantum computing has broken out of academic labs and found promising industry applications, and is now on the verge of providing breakthroughs in many fields. This in turn has accelerated research in this area, with notable advancements in recent years: the sustainable fidelity rate of silicon qubits, and surface-code error correction. I will explain why quantum computers will advance significantly over the next 5 – 10 years, and will be commonly employed in large research centres.