German startup NVision shows new path to quantum computing chips in Nature paper
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(Corrects paragraph 2 to reflect that NVision has raised $120 million from public and private sources, not $155 million)
By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 28 : German startup NVision on Wednesday published a paper in the scientific journal Nature showing a new way to make quantum computing chips that would borrow from the widespread manufacturing techniques currently used in smartphone displays.
Startups and tech giants such as Microsoft and IBM alike are racing to build quantum computers that hold the promise of solving problems that would take conventional machines thousands of years. But NVision, which has raised $120 million in funding from public and private sources such as Abbott Laboratories, made the discovery published on Wednesday while working in an entirely different field: improving medical devices.
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The company had developed a machine that can zap special sugar molecules until the spin of their electrons aligned. The aligned spins make the sugars a thousand times easier for MRI machines to see, which in turn helps identify cancer cells that eat the sugars far faster than healthy cells.
In the research published Wednesday, NVision showed that its technology can also work on organic molecules similar to those used in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays widely used in the electronics business. NVision used AI to simulate hundreds of candidate molecules and then physically synthesized about 40 of them until it found one that could be laid down in a thin layer over a chip made with conventional technology to create a quantum chip.
"We found this 'Goldilocks' molecule," Ilai Schwartz, NVision's chief technology officer, told Reuters in an interview.
NVision also said on Wednesday that it is partnering with US-based chipmaker HyperLight to make its first chips. NVision CEO Sella Brosh said that the company plans to build an entire quantum computer rather than sell only its specialized molecules.
"We want to do the whole thing, to fabricate the chips, to deposit the molecules, to do all the error correction on top of it," Brosh said in an interview. "Eventually, what we will sell is a rack-ready computer."
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