European researchers working on the Qubits Applications integrated project (QAP) are trying to solve some of the fundamental hurdles preventing real quantum computing applications. A group of 35 European scientists and industrial researchers are studying how to directly exploit quantum phenomena such as uncertainty, entanglement, and other aspects that are not fully understood. “We are not looking to create a quantum computer directly,” says QAP co-coordinator Ian Walmsley. “Other people are working on that, and it will take a long time to solve that problem.” Walmsley says QAP is working on some of the problems facing real-world quantum applications that could be deployed today that contain problems that need to be solved for quantum computing anyway, such as the storage of information encoded on a photon. “But by focusing on these problems, we can perhaps create important new products that could be developed in the short and medium term, and we could solve some of the fundamental problems affecting the advent of quantum computing,” he says. The researchers are exploring issues such as the storage of quantum information and transmission of certain quantum states, like entanglement, over long distances using repeaters. The researchers also will be examining quantum applications for the simulation of exceedingly complex problems. The project’s multidisciplinary nature is a major advantage, as computer scientists, applied mathematicians, experimental physicists, and industrial scientists and engineers are all contributing unique and diverse views and expertise, Walmsley says.
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Tags: Quantum
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