Quantum Chips - A Bridge to the Quantum Realm

Scientists around the world say that the 19th century was the Age of Machines, 20th century was the Age of Information and the 21st century is the Age of Quantum. This age of quantum is a spectator of new technology evolution that existed never before. Fields like Quantum Mechanics and Quantum computing are still in their early stages of development. To perceive it let us explore the core…

Willow, a ‘state of the art’ quantum chip

In the month of December 2024, Google announced it’s new hardware called Willow, a Quantum Chip. Google claims its abilities as the state-of-art performant across a number of metrics, which means that it is the most advanced technology till today (by the end of 2024).

Google says, Willow outperforms and excels at 2 major achievements:

• Quantum error correction

  • Quantum error correction is a foundational concept in field of ‘Quantum Information’. In quantum computers, error correction is very crucial because efficient quantum algorithms make use of large scale quantum interference. It is fragile and may lead to lack of accuracy in the computer performance and it eventually leads to unwanted blend between the computer and the rest of the world.

• Sets new standards of computation speed

  * Willow claims it's benchmark computation speed that would defeat one of the today’s fastest supercomputers. Willow could perform a complex computation in under five minutes which require 10 Septillion years for supercomputers like ‘ORNL’s exascale supercomputer’.

  One Septillion = 10²⁴

  It means 10 Septillion years means 10²⁵ years of time.

  Exascale supercomputer’s approximate computing speed is estimated to be one Quintillion operations per second.

  One Quintillion = 10¹⁸

To get a better understanding of the word "Quantum" let’s dive a bit deeper to its core…

What is Quantum and a quantum particle?

A Nobel laureate, Germany Physicist Max Planck proposed a theory that explains Black body radiation and energy particles called Quanta. He won Noble prize in 1918 for his remarkable work in theoretical physics. Max Planck’s Quantum Field theory defies the laws of Physics which lead to a discussion in science communities around the world and today’s world remembered him as “The Father of Quantum Theory” and also revered him as one of the founders of “Modern Physics”.

In the early days of the 20th Century, different scientists around the world attempted to explain Black Body radiation but it did not bridge the gap between the theory and practical aspects of it.

On the 19th October, 1900 Max Planck presented a new radiation principle that describes the energy distribution of thermal radiation and it stood incompatible with classical physics. Max Planck’s radiation principle explains radiation in the form of energy particles called { Quanta } and each particle is called { Quantum }

When he proposed this revolutionary concept, it was unnoticed at that time. But subsequently slowly it grabbed the attention of the scientists around the world.

when the temperature of a black body increases, it emits or absorbs energy in the form of quantized (chunks) electromagnetic waves rather than continuous flow. Energy gain or loss happens in the form of multiple small energy packets. This smallest energy particle is called Quantum.

Max Planck’s energy quantization explained with the help an equation:

E = hv

where ‘h’ denotes Planck’s Constant whose value is equal to 6.62607015X10^(-34) Joule Sec,

and ‘v’ denotes the frequency and ‘E’ denotes the Energy of the photon (light) particle.

This equation solves ultraviolet catastrophe and it clearly states that:

When assuming the energy emission happens only in the integral multiples (hv) from an object (like black body), the frequency of that electromagnetic radiation is directly proportional to the magnitude of the radiating energy.

In simple terms, Energy of a particle is directly proportional to its frequency.

Max Planck named such energy particle as { Quantum }

Max Planck’s constant plays a crucial role in understanding the motion of atoms, subatomic particles which shows a way to study the functioning of computer chips, solar panels, lasers… etc.

And this resulted the new branches of Physics to emerge like “Quantum Mechanics” and “ Modern Electronics”, “Quantum Optics” and others. Quantum Mechanics plays a crucial role in explaining and creating many things in today’s world like,

• Flash memory drives in USB apply quantum tunnelling to erase memory cells.

• GPS (Global Positioning System) works on atomic clocks that work on quantum mechanics principles.

• Electron microscope works on the quantum tunnelling concept and it can magnify objects to millions of times to their original size.

• MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is used to study tissues in organic matter like human body and it works on nuclear magnetic resonance, which is a combination of quantum mechanics and classical electrodynamics. During MRI scanning, hydrogen atom is used to generate high resolution images of the tissues.

• Quantum mechanics is used to study the evolution of starts and their existence which helps scientists to study and explore solar systems and the universe.

• Quantum cryptography, Lasers,….. and so on.

{ To be acquainted with topics mentioned in this article like Quantum Theory and its applications need a lot of explanation and discussion which is out of scope in this article…. }

Wave - Particle Duality

Debate about the nature of atomic particles among the scientists around the world dates back 17th century. At that time, Isaac Newton proposed the nature of light as corpuscular where as another scientist Christiaan Huygens stated it as wave nature and both of these theories contradict each other. Later, Isaac Newton appeased both the theories and proposed a new theory called wave-particle duality of a light.

In the 18th century, Thomas Young’s double slit experiment proved that the photon particles have wave nature as a result of diffraction of the particles emitted from the source which created light and dark spot patterns on the receiver. Scientists further studied this behaviour and they found that when a detector (observer) is placed on the photon beam, particle nature of the photons is observed otherwise they exhibit wave nature. From there onwards the concept of wave - particle duality was widely discussed among the scientists of that time including Einstein, Heisenberg and others.

How wave particle duality is related to computers in 2024-25?

Quantum computers solve mathematical problems at an exponential speed which is unattainable or a tedious task even for super computers that exist today.

In today’s classical computers, Bits are fundamental units of data. To process any kind of operations inside a computer, a Bit can handle a state of either 0 or 1 at a time which limits the speed of calculations and computations of more complex problems whose out come is based on exceedingly high precision values.

In quantum computers, the fundamental unit of data is a Qubit. A Qubit at a time can exist in a state of either 0 or 1 or both which is a Superposition of both the states. It means a Qubit can handle a binary nature of a Bit at a time which simulates the wave-particle duality. When Qubits entangle to each other, one can influence the state of another, even though they are far away from one another. It leads to something called Quantum Parallelism. This condition of qubits creates the powerful correlation between them and adds exponential calculating power of the computer. Different Quantum algorithms in quantum computers work on the principles like Superposition, Entanglement and Interference to get the accurate results of more complex problems with faster computation speed.

When we observe all of these topics of Quantum mechanics and computing, we may have a feeling of a different reality / dimension. And we can call it as ‘realm’, a Quantum Realm.

Does Quantum Realm really exist?

May be, yes…!

The existential dimensions of subatomic particles and Boson particles like Photons at which they exhibit their behaviour can be termed and visualized as Quantum Realm. Scientists, Mathematicians and Technologists around the world are still working on the concept of quantum realm to decipher and manifest it to the human scale. Once they find a way, it is expected to solve hidden mysteries in the nature.

Tech giants and Quantum Computers in today’s world (…2025) !

Big players around the world have been working on the research and development of AI Accelerated Chips which could work on Quantum Computing principles.

IBM

IBM has quantum exploration facilities such as Quantum Composer and Quantum Lab. In the year 2025, IBM is aiming to release the largest quantum computer ever, by combining many quantum chips in parallel.

Google

Google Quantum AI is a actively working on faster ever - computing abilities. The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab is a collaborative research facility undertaken by Google, NASA and The Universities Space Research association.

NVidia

NVidia’s CUDA-Q is a platform that enables services on CPU,GPU and QPU. This platform offers GPU simulations when adequate QPU resources are not available. In early 2025, NVidia’s Blackwell architecture was announced for AI Accelerated chips, which can simulate Quantum Computing and hybrid application development procedures. And NVidia also announced it’s next release ‘Rubin’ a superchip successor of Blackwell in 2026.

Amazon

Amazon Bracket service is an accelerated quantum computing research facility on Amazon cloud. It allows the users to connect multiple quantum computers.

IonQ

IonQ offers quantum services for customers of various needs. And it uses CUDA-Q platform.

Many other players around the world are in the race of Quantum and AI supremacy*.*

What the future holds..!

Exciting and Unknown….!

I conclude here, as the topics discussed in this article are just a glimpse of quantum mechanics and its applications in the field of computing. However, each one of them has a potential of individual study and research allowing an in-depth exploration of the subject.