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Quantum computer based on shuttling trapped ions

A microchip-based quantum computer has been built incorporating an architecture in which calculations are carried out by shuttling atomic ions. The device exhibits excellent performance and potential for scaling up.
  1. Winfried K. Hensinger

    1. Winfried K. Hensinger is at the Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK, and at Universal Quantum, Brighton.

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Quantum computing based on trapped atomic ions has already proved itself to be a leading hardware platform for quantum information processing. Indeed, trapped ions have been used to realize quantum gates — the basic building blocks of a quantum computer — that have the smallest quantum-computation errors of any hardware platform1,2. The approach also stands out because it could allow practical machines to be built that do not require cooling to ultra-low (millikelvin) temperatures. However, there have been few comprehensive demonstrations of quantum-computing architectures capable of being scaled up to thousands of quantum bits (qubits). Writing in Nature, Pino et al.3 report the construction and operation of a prototype microchip-based, trapped-ion quantum computer that incorporates a promising architecture based on ion shuttling.

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Nature 592, 190-191 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00844-z

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Competing Interests

The author has shares in, and is partially seconded to, a company that is developing trapped-ion quantum computers, albeit using a different approach from that described by Pino and colleagues.

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