Posts Tagged: "quantum computers"

Patenting activities in the quantum computing sector have rapidly increased in recent years, with the U.S. by far the preferred jurisdiction for applicants… One interesting finding from the Patinformatics report is that, although Northrop Grumman doesn’t have the largest portfolio in the field, it is well-situated to compete with the biggest players. “One of our main assertions is that, if there’s an organization interested in being competitive with IBM, they may want to contemplate a partnership or acquisition of Northrop Grumman,” Trippe said. Both Northrop and IBM have made significant investments into super-conducting loop qubit technologies and Northrop actually edges IBM in logic gate hardware.

In late March, reports came out that researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland demonstrated the Fredkin gate, also known as the controlled-SWAP gate. First conceived by American digital physicist Edward Fredkin, the Fredkin gate is designed to exchange values between qubits in a quantum computing system based on a value of a third qubit. The Fredkin gate is perhaps a foundational component to quantum computers, replacing circuits requiring five logic operations with circuitry which takes advantage of the quantum principle of entanglement.

Unlike classical computing, which relies on bits that take on values of either 1 or 0 in order to process information, quantum computing relies on qubits. Qubits can take the distinguishable 1 or 0 value, but unlike classical bits, there are aspects of quantum mechanics, which make qubits much more useful in certain applications. One unique element of qubits are their ability to take on a superposition, meaning that a single qubit can be in multiple states at a single moment in the same way that a light can behave as a wave or a particle at the molecular level. Entanglement, or the state in which two qubits can be inextricably linked even when separated by great distances, is another effect of quantum mechanics which has implications for computing. Superposition and entanglement would allow a quantum computer to rapidly perform calculations which could never be completed by a classical computer, such as finding the factors of a number with more than 500 digits, unlocking a new world in data encryption and analysis.