Editor TLN
Imagine an army whose technological superiority is so prominent that it doesn’t hesitate to show off its own “quantum processor” as a key element to face the threats of his enemies. It is not about the United States or China, two of the big players in the race to develop this promising technology, but about Iran.
The Tasnim agency points out that the Islamic country has presented its “first processor of quantum algorithms”. A technological component developed by the Imam Khomeini University of Naval Sciences and Technologies that promises to improve the detection of vessels. The problem? The exhibited device is far from quantum.
From quantum tech wunderkind to board to ARM
The presentation of the supposed quantum processor was held last week in Nowshahr, a port city located in the province of Mazandarán. Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Deputy Coordinator of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, was photographed with the device in his handswhich revealed the true essence of it.
At least according to Gabriel Noronha. Former US State Department adviser on Iran stated on Twitter after analyzing the photograph that it is not a high-tech “innovative quantum processor”, but an ARM development board that can be purchased on Amazon for the modest price of $589.
Far from having the characteristics of a computer system capable of working with qubits (the complex basic unit of quantum information), this Digilent ZedBoard Zynq-7000 model board has a processor Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9which comes with 512 MB of DDR3 memory and 256 GB of flash storage.
Over the years, quantum computing has shown significant advances. However, this discipline still has to overcome a great number of challenges before it reaches a point of optimal maturation. Among the challenges that are on the horizon are developing new algorithms and implementing an error correction system.
Images: Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran
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