Xanadu's 12-Qubit Photonic Quantum Computer: A Promising First Step
2025-01-31
Xanadu's latest research, published in Nature, details their 12-qubit photonic quantum computer, Aurora, built using 35 chips. While significantly fewer qubits than Google or IBM's offerings, this represents a key advancement in photonic quantum computing. Researchers highlight advantages like noise resilience and ease of networking, crucial for a future quantum internet. However, practical quantum computing applications require thousands, if not millions, of qubits. The achievement is compared to building a hotel—one room has been constructed, but the feasibility of building the entire hotel remains to be seen.