UK Quantum Technology Hub: NQIT - Networked Quantum Information Technologies

该中心通过设计小型、高精度的量子系统，并将它们连接到一个网络中，以创建世界上第一个真正可扩展的量子计算引擎，加速迈向新的“量子时代”。这个新的计算平台将利用量子效应来完成目前不可能完成的任务。该中心是由牛津大学领导的九所大学组成的联盟，这些大学在量子技术方面具有互补的专业知识，包括巴斯，剑桥，爱丁堡，利兹，斯特拉斯克莱德，南安普顿，苏塞克斯和沃里克。我们已经组建了一个由超过25家公司（Lockheed-Martin、Raytheon BBN、Google、AMEX）、政府实验室（NPL、DSTL、NIST）和中小企业（PureLiFi、Rohde &施瓦茨、白杨）组成的网络，他们正在投入资源和人力。我们雄心勃勃的旗舰目标是Q20：20引擎--一个由20个光连接的离子阱处理器组成的网络，每个处理器包含20个量子比特。这台400量子比特的机器将比迄今为止已经实现的任何机器都要强大得多，但最近在三个方面取得的进展使其成为一个可行的目标。首先，牛津大学的研究人员最近发现了一种方法，可以通过光子（光粒子）以低精度连接精确控制的量子比特来构建量子计算机。第二，牛津大学的离子阱研究人员最近以99.9999%的准确率实现了精确量子位控制的新世界纪录。第三，我们最近展示了如何控制小硅芯片内的光子干涉。我们现在有一个令人兴奋的机会，联合收割机结合这些进步，创造一个轻物质混合网络计算机，获得“两全其美”，克服长期存在的不切实际的问题，如不断增加的复杂性的物质只有系统，或巨大的资源需求的纯光子方法。工程师和科学家与枢纽将与其他枢纽和合作伙伴从地球仪，以实现这一目标。目前，在实验室中进行的是原理验证实验，“最大的挑战”是开发紧凑的可制造设备和组件来构建Q20：20引擎（并使其易于构建更多）。我们已经确定了这项工作的20多个副产品，从防黑客通信系统和超敏感的医疗和军事传感器到更高分辨率的成像系统。量子ICT将带来巨大的经济效益，并为尚未解决的问题提供技术解决方案。就像今天的计算机允许喷气式飞机设计师在飞机制造之前测试飞机的空气动力学一样，量子计算机将在制造之前对材料的特性进行建模，或者在没有试错过程的情况下设计出一种重要的药物。这就是所谓的数字量子模拟。事实上，许多使用传统计算很难解决的问题都可以通过“量子协处理器”来增强。这是一种非常理想的能力，在多个科学和技术领域都很重要，以至于即使是有限的量子能力（例如D-Wave的设备）的前景也引起了极大的兴奋。Q20：20将是可验证量子计算机的早期形式，这是一台不折不扣的通用机器，最终可以执行任何算法并扩展到任何大小。市场和影响将相应地大得多。除了计算之外，还将在安全通信中使用，因此“可信”互联网变得可行，在传感中-这样我们就可以测量到新的精度水平，以及新的组件--比如让我们能够收集单光子的新探测器。该中心最终将成为新兴量子ICT产业的焦点，训练有素的科学家和工程师可以解决工业和更广泛的世界中的问题，量子技术将带来好处。这将有助于形成新的公司，新市场，并发展英国的知识经济。

This Hub accelerates progress towards a new "quantum era" by engineering small, high precision quantum systems, and linking them into a network to create the world's first truly scalable quantum computing engine. This new computing platform will harness quantum effects to achieve tasks that are currently impossible.The Hub is an Oxford-led alliance of nine universities with complementary expertise in quantum technologies including Bath, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Strathclyde, Southampton, Sussex and Warwick. We have assembled a network of more than 25 companies (Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon BBN, Google, AMEX), government labs (NPL, DSTL, NIST) and SMEs (PureLiFi, Rohde & Schwarz, Aspen) who are investing resources and manpower.Our ambitious flagship goal is the Q20:20 engine - a network of twenty optically-linked ion-trap processors each containing twenty quantum bits (qubits). This 400 qubit machine will be vastly more powerful than anything that has been achieved to date, but recent progress on three fronts makes it a feasible goal. First, Oxford researchers recently discovered a way to build a quantum computer from precisely-controlled qubits linked with low precision by photons (particles of light). Second, Oxford's ion-trap researchers recently achieved a new world record for precision qubit control with 99.9999% accuracy. Third, we recently showed how to control photonic interference inside small silica chips. We now have an exciting opportunity to combine these advances to create a light-matter hybrid network computer that gets the 'best of both worlds' and overcomes long-standing impracticalities like the ever increasing complexity of matter-only systems, or the immense resource requirements of purely photonic approaches.Engineers and scientists with the hub will work with other hubs and partners from across the globe to achieve this. At present proof-of-principle experiments exist in the lab, and the 'grand challenge' is to develop compact manufacturable devices and components to build the Q20:20 engine (and to make it easy to build more).We have already identified more than 20 spin-offs from this work, ranging from hacker-proof communication systems and ultra-sensitive medical and military sensors to higher resolution imaging systems.Quantum ICT will bring great economic benefits and offer technical solutions to as yet unsolveable problems. Just as today's computers allow jet designers to test the aerodynamics of planes before they are built, a quantum computer will model the properties of materials before they've been made, or design a vital drug without the trial and error process. This is called digital quantum simulation. In fact many problems that are difficult using conventional computing can be enhanced with a 'quantum co-processor'. This is a hugely desirable capability, important across multiple areas of science and technology, so much so that even the prospect of limited quantum capabilities (e.g. D-Wave's device) has raised great excitement. The Q20:20 will be an early form of a verifiable quantum computer, the uncompromised universal machine that can ultimately perform any algorithm and scale to any size; the markets and impacts will be correspondingly far greater.In addition to computing there will be uses in secure communications, so that a 'trusted' internet becomes feasible, in sensing - so that we can measure to new levels of precision, and in new components - for instance new detectors that allow us to collect single photons.The hub will ultimately become a focus for an emerging quantum ICT industry, with trained scientists and engineers available to address the problems in industry and the wider world where quantum techniques will be bringing benefits. It will help form new companies, new markets, and grow the UK's knowledge economy.