After the years of efforts of researchers, Israel has developed its first quantum computer, which will help solve various data issues with its new computing paradigm, benefiting industries like cybersecurity, banking, finance and others.
The computed named WeizQC is expected to work with 64 qubits and "demonstrate the quantum advantage, which until now has only been achieved by computers built in two labs: at Google and at the University of Science and Technology of China.
The device is developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Dr. Tom Manovitz, a quantum computing researcher, and research student Yotam Shapira led the research with a team of Ph.D. students. The team worked for years to build this device and spent the past two to three years only assembling the device.
The device is one of about 30 quantum computers in the world in different stages and one of fewer than 10 that use ion traps, an advanced technology that confines ions (molecules with a net electrical charge) in a small space using magnetic or/and electric fields. Trapped ions can form the basis of quantum bits, or qubits, the basic unit of quantum information, according to The Times of Israel.
How Do Quantum Computers Function?
According to an MIT Technology review, classical computers carry out logical operations based on one of two positions — 1 or 0, on or off, up or down — quantum computers can keep qubits in "superposition," a principle of quantum mechanics where they are both simultaneously. In this state, quantum computers "can crunch through a vast number of potential outcomes simultaneously.
How Quantum Computing is Useful
Quantum computing is touted to be useful for many sectors in widening their reach and maintaining their operations. Industries like cybersecurity, materials and pharmaceuticals, banking and finance, and advanced manufacturing are expected to be benefited from it.
Market Size of Quantum Computing
The market size of global quantum computing is expected to be nearly $487.4 million in 2021 and by 2030 it could reach $3.7 billion.
The research team is now expected to use the quantum computer to run advanced algorithms while working on a larger machine that will tackle larger data loads.
The device was named WeizQC in a tribute to WEIZAC, which was one of the world's first computers build in Israel in the 1950s at the Weizmann Institute.
