Israel breaks into the exclusive quantum computing club
As of this week, Israel has a quantum computer, which is also one of ten in the world based on the most advanced technology, known as ion traps. This was announced by the Weizmann Institute of Science, whose Department of Complex Systems Physics has been the designer and builder of one of the thirty quantum computers currently in existence worldwide.
Leading the highly specialised team is Professor Roee Ozeri, who with visible satisfaction noted that his team will not stop there as it is already working on an even larger computer.
The milestone is a renewed success for the Weizmann Institute, which created one of the world's first computers, the Weizac, built in 1950 "when all Israel had were swamps and camels," says Ozeri. The professor also points to a horizon in which he sees Israel at the technological pinnacle of the world: "Today Israel is a technological empire, so there is no reason why we should not aspire to lead the race in quantum computing".
The competition is one of the cornerstones on which the new global primacy will be determined, and which will design the model of society of the future. Quantum computers promise to achieve a computational complexity known as the "quantum advantage", unthinkable even with today's most powerful classical computers.
Based on a different set of laws, those of quantum mechanics, this new computing system is set to generate numerous applications, from impenetrable codes to predicting stock market fluctuations, accelerating the development of drugs, building materials, Artificial Intelligence systems and, as Professor Ozeri himself says, "much, much more".
In the announcement of its finding, the Weizmann Institute explains that in our familiar world, any body or unit of information (bit) can only be in one place at a time. In contrast, quantum bits (qubits) can be present simultaneously in more than one position or state, allowing them to perform multiple calculations in parallel. This opens the door to infinite multiplication of computing power.
Regarding the current state of the race, Roee Ozeri notes that "commercial companies such as Google, Amazon and IBM joined the race for a quantum computer, while the United States, China and the European Union also initiated massively funded strategic programmes". Clearly, all these moves show that this is and will be the real playing field on which the leadership of the future will be contested.
The machine now being pioneered by the Weizmann Institute is five qubits, equivalent to the level reached by IBM when it began offering quantum computing as a cloud service. The new, more advanced one, already being designed and built by Professor Ozeri's team, is programmed to run on 64 qubits, and has already been given an early name: WeizQC, in homage to that first computer in 1950, when in the newborn State of Israel "there was nothing but swamps and camels".
