Irish startup Equal1 has unveiled the world's first quantum computer that runs on a hybrid quantum-classical silicon chip.
Dubbed Bell-1 — after quantum physicist John Stewart ...
Bell — the computer weighs around 200kg and plugs into a regular electrical socket. The rack-mountable machine is designed to simply slot into high-performance computing (HPC) data centres alongside standard servers. Equal1's CEO Jason Lynch told TNW that combining quantum technology with today's most advanced classical processors offers the fastest route to a quantum computer capable of potentially world-changing calculations. The potential applications are endless. Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems that classical computers cannot, which could lead to breakthroughs in drug discovery, cryptography, modelling, and AI. "We're leveraging established semiconductor technologies to scale up faster than the competition," said Lynch. "This is the best way to scale quantum computing at the pace required." The Bell-1 quantum computer inside its shield. Credit: Equal1 Equal1 marries classical transistors (for normal computing tasks) and quantum transistors (for qubits) in a single silicon-based chip. Qubits, akin to bits in a regular PC, are the basic units of information in a quantum computer. The…