Science and Tech

Laser beams and digital screens bring quantum computing closer

Graphic description of the system

Graphic description of the system – WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY

Nov 29. () –

An innovative computer system combines lasers and everyday screen technology makes possible an important advance in more powerful quantum computing solutions, according to its promoters.

A team from the Structured Light Lab of the University of the Witwatersrand explains that this advance offers a simpler, more cost-effective approach to advanced quantum computing by harnessing the unique properties of light. This development could potentially speed up complex calculations in fields such as logistics, finance and artificial intelligence. The research was published in the journal APL Photonics as an editor’s pick.

Traditional computers work as telephone switchboardsprocessing information as simple yes or no decisions. “Our approach uses lasers to process multiple possibilities simultaneously, dramatically increasing computing power,” he says. in a statement Dr Isaac Nape, Professor of Emerging Optics at the Witwatersrand.

The research team built their system using surprisingly common components: lasers, digital screens similar to those found in projectors, and simple lenses.

The key was linking the way light interacts with optical devices, such as digital screens and lenses, with the mathematical operations that a quantum operation performs on a quantum computer. These operations can be simply decomposed into multiplication and addition (using vectors and matrices), all performed at the speed of light.

Once this was achieved, they showed the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, an intelligent test that determines whether an operation performed by a computer is random or predictable, something that a quantum computer can do much faster than any classical computing machine.

“Our work paves the way to simulate even more complex quantum algorithms,” adds student Mwezi Koni, co-author of the study. “This could open up exciting new possibilities in areas such as quantum optimization and quantum machine learning.”

Their method can handle much more information than conventional computers, which are limited to working only with ones and zeros.

“We have shown that our system can work with 16 different levels of information instead of just the two used in classic computers” says Koni, who led the experiment. “In theory, we could scale it up to handle millions of levels, which would be a game-changer for processing complex information.”

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