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Corralling photons to solve problems in seconds

Quantum physicist Chao-Yang Lu develops superfast computers that rely on the curious collisions of single particles of light.
  1. James Mitchell Crow

    1. James Mitchell Crow is a freelance writer, based in Melbourne, Australia.

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Portrait of Chao-Yang Lu with his protoype Jiuzhang quantum computer.

Chao-Yang Lu is a quantum physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, China. Credit: Dave Tacon for Nature

In my laboratory, we develop quantum computers based on single photons, the fundamental particles of light. In 2020, our computer was the first worldwide to demonstrate ‘quantum advantage’: it completed a calculation in 200 seconds that would take a conventional supercomputer more than 2 billion years.

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Nature 610, 412 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03205-6

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