GOOGLE has announced plans to build its own quantum computer, despite having purchased one from D-Wave of Burnaby, Canada, last year.
D-Wave鈥檚 computers, which are based on superconducting quantum circuits, display quantum behaviour, but it isn鈥檛 clear whether their design can actually take advantage of quantum mechanics to calculate faster than an ordinary PC.
Now Google has hired John Martinis of the University of California, Santa Barbara, to build its own quantum processors, following the D-Wave approach. Martinis is also working on quantum error-correcting techniques, which are likely to be necessary for a working machine.
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Google says the two projects will run in parallel. 鈥淲e will continue to collaborate with D-Wave scientists,鈥� said Google鈥檚 Hartmut Neven in a blog post. Google plans to upgrade its D-Wave machine.
It is no surprise that Google wants to get into the quantum business. A computer that can successfully exploit its quantum nature could theoretically revolutionise certain applications, such as searching large databases very quickly.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淨uantum Google鈥�
