Q&A: Building Quantum Computers with Superconductors

Michael R. Geller, Emily Pritchett, Andrew T. Sornborger +1 more

Yutaka Tabuchi

Masamitsu Tanaka, Yuki Yamanashi

Superconductor devices are promising for building large-scale quantum computing systems. This article reports the current status and issues of the superconductor classical (digital and mixed-signal) circuit technology for quantum computing applications. The single-flux-quantum-based circuits provide advanced signal processing featuring several gigahertz clock frequencies, high sensitivity, and ultra-low power operation at a millikelvin-level temperature and are helpful for control and readout of quantum bits. The superconductor cryogenic peripheral circuits are expected to be a key to breakthrough in system scalability.

Yasunobu Nakamura

Amaia Irastorza Gabilondo

Quantum computation using supercoducting qubits. Qubits are quantum bits used in quantum computers. Superconducting qubits are a strong option for building a quantum computer. But not just that, as they are macroscopic objects they question the limits of quantum physics.

Brook W. Abegaz, Satish M. Mahajan, Wayne R. Johnson

In this paper, the power consumption of present-day computing facilities which are based on Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (CMOS) devices is compared with that of Josephson junction superconductor based computing facilities of the future. First, the amount of power used by present-day computing facilities was identified in different regions of the world. Then, the energy consumption of computing facilities of the future is presented considering superconducting Josephson junction devices as the primary building blocks of constituent quantum computers. From the results, it was identified that implementing superconducting devices in computing facilities could decrease the energy consumption by up to two orders of magnitude as compared to CMOS based semiconductor devices. The low power consumption and the fast operational speed of the Josephson junction superconductor based quantum computers were also identified to be superior than the semiconductor based computing facilities.