A new technique in quantum storage that operates at room temperature could pave the way for a quantum internet.© PM Images via Getty ImagesAs well as being faster, quantum communications are inherently secure โ while classical communications can be intercepted or manipulated.
We're now one step closer to a "quantum internet" โ an interconnected web of quantum computers โ after
scientists built a network of "quantum memories" at room temperature for the first time.In their experiments, the scientists stored and retrieved two photonic qubits โ qubits made from photons (or light particles) โ at the quantum level, according to their paper published on Jan. 15 in the
Nature journal,
Quantum Information.The breakthrough is significant because quantum memory is a foundational technology that will be a precursor to a quantum internet - the next generation of the World Wide Web.
Quantum memory is the quantum version of binary computing memory. While data in classical computing is encoded in binary states of 1 or 0, quantum memory stores data as a quantum bit, or qubit, which can also be a superposition of 1 and 0. If observed, the superposition collapses and the qubit is as useful as a conventional bit.
Quantum computers with millions of qubits are expected to be vastly more powerful than today's fastest supercomputers โ because entangled qubits (intrinsically linked over space and time) can make many more calculations simultaneously.
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