China has successfully mass-produced 1,500 batches of quantum chips, outperforming traditional chips in performance. Multiple companies are laying out their strategies in quantum technology, covering areas such as quantum communication and quantum computing, driving rapid growth in the quantum technology market. It is expected that by 2030, the global quantum chip market will reach a scale of up to $100 billion.

01

Why develop quantum chips?

Companies develop quantum chips for various reasons, primarily because quantum computing holds the potential to revolutionize the field of computation and solve problems that traditional computers cannot.

Solving complex problems: Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems that traditional computers cannot, including optimization, cryptography, materials science, and drug development.

Quantum advantage: Companies aim to achieve "quantum advantage," where quantum computers can perform specific tasks faster or more efficiently than traditional computers. This could lead to breakthroughs in industries such as finance, logistics, and healthcare.

Competitive advantage: Companies view quantum computing as a source of competitive advantage. Being at the forefront of quantum technology can give them an edge in their respective industries and open up new business opportunities.

Due to these advantages, major companies are actively investing in quantum chips.

02

Who is developing them?

IBM has released two new quantum chips, Condor and Heron, using superconducting and ion trap technologies, respectively. However, the biggest challenge in superconducting quantum computing is quantum entanglement. QuEra's new quantum computer adopts silicon spin qubit technology, offering high coherence times and low error rates, surpassing IBM's Condor chip. QuEra's new quantum computer features a design with 48 logical qubits and a modular approach, enabling the construction of larger-scale quantum computers. This achievement, funded by the U.S. government, will have a profound impact on global technological development and the competitive landscape.

Additionally, QuEra's new quantum computer employs a modular design, allowing different modules to connect and form larger-scale quantum computers. This design approach is similar to that of mainstream superconducting quantum computers, but QuEra's system offers higher coherence times and lower error rates, giving it a performance advantage.

Lastly, QuEra's new quantum computer is led by Harvard University and funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) Optimization program. This underscores the significant investments made by the U.S. government in quantum computing to maintain its leadership in the field. Other countries must also invest heavily to remain competitive.

QuEra's new quantum computer adopts a different technical approach and design, offering higher coherence times and lower error rates, thus outperforming others in performance. This is significant not only for the U.S. government and enterprises in areas like information security and financial technology but will also have a profound impact on global technological development and the competitive landscape. Therefore, we should closely monitor the latest advancements and breakthroughs in this field to better drive global technological progress. For humanity, this represents both a significant step forward and a potential threat, as quantum computers can easily crack encryption protocols used by governments, banks, and corporations, compromising national secrets and personal information.

Google's Bristlecone is a quantum processor designed to demonstrate quantum supremacy, a major milestone in quantum computing. While primarily a research tool, it showcases advancements in quantum hardware. Quantifying the capabilities of a quantum processor is crucial before studying specific applications. Google's theory team has developed a benchmarking tool to accomplish this by applying random quantum circuits to the device and comparing the sampled output distributions with classical simulations. If a quantum processor operates with sufficiently low error, it can outperform classical supercomputers on a well-defined computational problem, an achievement known as "quantum supremacy." These random circuits must be large in qubit count and circuit depth. While no one has yet achieved this, Google's quantum supremacy calculation uses 49 qubits, a circuit depth exceeding 40 qubits, and a two-qubit gate error below 0.5%. Google believes that experimental demonstration of quantum processors outperforming supercomputers will be a watershed moment in the field and remains one of their primary goals.

Quantum computing company Rigetti offers cloud access to their quantum processors and quantum development environment called Forest. They have developed quantum chips such as Aspen-9 and Aspen-9Q.

Honeywell has developed a quantum computer with a different architecture from many other quantum processors. Their device is based on ion trap technology and offers various quantum chips for different applications.

Multiple domestic companies are also investing in quantum technology, covering areas like quantum communication and quantum computing, driving rapid growth in the quantum technology market.

China has announced the successful mass production of up to 1,500 batches of quantum chips, a feat that has shaken the world. Dubbed the "Chinese superchip," this quantum masterpiece outperforms traditional silicon-based chips by a thousandfold in performance while consuming nearly negligible energy, just one-ninety-thousandth of that of traditional chips.

For example, Tianhe Defense focuses on three main business areas: "Communication Electronics," "Next-Generation Integrated Electronic Information (Tianrong Project)," and five business segments including military equipment, 5G RF, IoT sensing, industrial big data, and digital ocean. The company's subsidiaries have conducted preliminary research and experiments on cryogenic devices for quantum communication based on their existing businesses, and have already carried out cryogenic environment tests on related devices.

GuoYi Quantum, a globally renowned quantum technology company, is partially owned by University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) subsidiary Guokechuang.

Tongniu Information and Guoke Quantum have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to advance the marketization and industrialization of quantum communication technology, strengthening cooperation in areas such as link encryption and quantum applications and jointly expanding the cloud security service market.

In September 2017, Sugon and QuantumCTek held a strategic cooperation signing ceremony in Beijing, jointly building an ecosystem for the quantum communication industry with industrial chain partners. This cooperation marks an important step forward in the industrialization of quantum communication in China and signifies Sugon's official entry into the field as a member of the national team in the information industry. The jointly developed QC Server, the world's first cloud security all-in-one device based on quantum communication, was unveiled, marking China's global leadership in both research and application support for quantum secure communication following its pioneering research efforts.

Haofeng Technology holds the software copyright for a quantum application security service platform but is still exploring how to industrialize quantum applications.

Jidazhengyuan has made progress in research on post-quantum cryptography algorithms, achieving anti-quantum signature algorithms and successfully developing key generation and certificate issuance functions in a hybrid mode combining traditional cryptography and post-quantum cryptography, completing the integration of post-quantum algorithms with digital certificate technology.

03

How does quantum supremacy dominate?

Over the past decade, people have been working to develop quantum computers that can significantly accelerate certain types of computations, potentially revolutionizing fields like physics, medicine, biology, artificial intelligence, and cryptography. Researchers have demonstrated "quantum supremacy" using advanced quantum computer prototypes as proof-of-concept, calculating results in seconds that would take the fastest traditional supercomputers thousands of years.

While such demonstrations undoubtedly mark a technological milestone, tasks completed at incredible speeds do not necessarily herald the commercialization of quantum computers in the short term. To ensure the continued development of quantum technology over the next decade, quantum computing hardware needs advances in materials and manufacturing processes, similar to the continuous expansion of transistor technology that drove the development of traditional computing.

Intel holds a leading edge in realizing qubit chips on 300mm wafers. Semiconductor CMOS technology can compress billions of transistors onto traditional computer chips produced from 300mm wafers, and Intel believes that the same technology can be replicated to build quantum computers capable of practical applications. This approach is feasible because silicon spin qubits share many similarities with semiconductor transistors, which form the building blocks of microprocessors. Spin qubits are small, measuring approximately 100 nanometers, making them denser than other qubit types and enabling more complex quantum computers on a single chip. Intel's manufacturing method utilizes extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, currently used to mass-produce chips for the computing industry.

Intel's 300mm silicon spin qubit wafer

To achieve a fault-tolerant quantum computer with millions of uniformly consistent error-corrected qubits, highly reliable manufacturing processes are required, which can only be performed in well-established wafer production facilities. Intel notes that it ships wafers containing approximately 800 quadrillion (800 x 1015) transistors annually. At this rate, by 2025, this number will exceed the total number of human cells on Earth.

Tunnel Falls, Intel's most advanced silicon spin qubit chip to date, leverages the company's decades of expertise in transistor design and manufacturing. Fabricated on 300mm wafers at D1 Fab in Hillsboro, Oregon, this qubit silicon chip marks the next step toward building a full-stack commercial quantum computing system, accessible to quantum researchers and academia lacking large-scale manufacturing machines. The availability of Tunnel Falls, combined with access to Intel's Quantum Software Development Kit (QSDK), represents a tangible effort to democratize quantum computing research.

Meanwhile, leveraging advanced CMOS production lines, Intel can use innovative process control techniques to improve yield and performance. For instance, Intel claims that the Tunnel Falls 12-qubit device achieves a 95% yield at the wafer level, with voltage uniformity similar to CMOS logic processes, providing over 24,000 quantum dot devices per wafer. Each 12-dot chip can form 4 to 12 qubits, which can be isolated and utilized simultaneously depending on how research labs operate their systems.