Quantum computers can solve problems in seconds that would take “ordinary” computers millennia, but their sensitivity to interference is majorly holding them back. Now, researchers claim they’ve created a component that drastically cuts down on error-inducing noise.
Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can represent a one, a zero, or any combination of the two simultaneously. This is thanks to the quantum phenomenon known as superposition.
Another property, quantum entanglement, allows for qubits to be linked together, and changing the state of one qubit will also change the state of its entangled partner.
Thanks to these two properties, quantum computers of a few dozen qubits can outperform massive supercomputers in certain very specific tasks. But there are several issues holding quantum computers back from solving the world’s toughest problems, one of them is how prone qubits are to error.