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Researchers have unveiled what they say is the first practical blueprint for the 'holy grail' of computing - a quantum computer.

Researchers from the University of Sussex led the team from around the world, including a team from Google, and say their work has the potential to revolutionise industry, science and commerce on a similar scale as the invention of ordinary computers. 

If it works, it will be a real-life version of Deep Thought, the supercomputer programmed to solve the 'ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything' in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.  

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Researchers from around the world, including a team from Google, have unveiled what they say is the first practical blueprint for the 'holy grail' of computing - a quantum computer. Pictured, the prototype of the core of a trapped ion quantum computer, which the team now says could be operational within two years.

They have released the plans in the hope other teams will build and test the machines.

The quantum computer has to the potential to be more powerful in solving certain problems than any computer ever constructed before.

'For many years, people said that it was completely impossible to construct an actual quantum computer,' said Professor Winfried Hensinger, head of the Ion Quantum Technology Group at the University of Sussex, who has been leading this research. 

'With our work we have not only shown that it can be done but now we are delivering a nuts and bolts construction plan to build an actual large-scale machine.'

As a next step, the team will construct a prototype quantum computer, based on this design, at the University, and say it could be operational within two years.

'It is the Holy Grail of science, really, to build a quantum computer,' Hensinger told The independent. 

'Life will change completely. We will be able to do certain things we could never even dream of before.' 

Once built, researchers say the computer's capabilities mean it 'would have the potential to answer many questions in science; create new, lifesaving medicines; solve the most mind-boggling scientific problems; unravel the yet unknown mysteries of the furthest reaches of deepest space; and solve some problems that an ordinary computer would take billions of years to compute.'

This huge leap forward towards creating a universal quantum computer is published in the journal 'Science Advances'.

'The availability of a universal quantum computer may have a fundamental impact on a vast number of research fields and on society as a whole,' the researchers wrote. 

It relies on a new invention permitting actual quantum bits to be transmitted between individual quantum computing modules in order to obtain a fully modular large-scale machine capable of reaching nearly arbitrary large computational processing powers.

Professor Winfried Hensinger (right) and Lead author Dr Bjoern Lekitsch (left) with a quantum computer blueprint model behind a quantum computer prototype at the university. They are part of a team of researchers from around the world, including a team from Google, that have unveiled what they say is the first practical blueprint for the 'holy grail' of computing - a quantum computer.

Previously, scientists had proposed using fibre optic connections to connect individual computer modules. 

HOW THE COMPUTER WILL WORK

An artist's impression of a quantum computing module as detailed in the blueprint for a microwave trapped ion quantum computer.

The blueprints rely on a new invention permitting actual quantum bits to be transmitted between individual quantum computing modules in order to obtain a fully modular large-scale machine capable of reaching nearly arbitrary large computational processing powers.

Previously, scientists had proposed using fibre optic connections to connect individual computer modules. 

The new invention introduces connections created by electric fields that allow charged atoms (ions) to be transported from one module to another. 

This new approach allows 100,000 times faster connection speeds between individual quantum computing modules compared to current state-of-the-art fibre link technology. 

Waht thwe machine will look like: An illustration showing a large scale microwave trapped ion quantum computer modules, which can be linked together for added power

 

The new invention introduces connections created by electric fields that allow charged atoms (ions) to be transported from one module to another. 

This new approach allows 100,000 times faster connection speeds between individual quantum computing modules compared to current state-of-the-art fibre link technology. 

The new blueprint is the work of an international team of scientists from the University of Sussex (UK), Google (USA), Aarhus University (Denmark), RIKEN (Japan) and Siegen University (Germany). 

A 3D printed model of individual quantum computing modules as detailed in the blueprint for a microwave trapped ion quantum computer.

The effort is part of the UK Government's plan to develop quantum technologies towards industrial exploitation and makes use of a recent invention by the Sussex team to replace billions of laser beams required for quantum computing operations within a large-scale quantum computer with the simple application of voltages to a microchip.

Prof Hensinger said: 'The availability of a universal quantum computer may have a fundamental impact on society as a whole. 

'Without doubt it is still challenging to build a large-scale machine, but now is the time to translate academic excellence into actual application building on the UK's strengths in this ground-breaking technology. 

'I am very excited to work with industry and government to make this happen.'

Even the fastest supercomputers today are still bound by the system of 1's and 0's which enabled the very first machines to make calculations.

But experts believe that drawing on the strange properties of the quantum world can enable computers to break free from these binary shackles, creating the most powerful problem-solving machines on the planet. 

Quantum supremacy is the term the company uses for its plans  to build the first quantum computer capable of performing calculations out of reach of classical computers.

Firm's such as Google hope that quantum computing could be the solution for analysing huge datasets to find optimum solutions.

The heart of modern computing is binary code, which has served computers so well for decades.

Machines use bits which can be either a 1 or a 0 to process data, but quantum computers are instead based on quantum bits or 'qubits', which can be 1, 0 or even both at the same time.

Experts believe researchers at Google are on the verge of a breakthrough in quantum computing, potentially reaching a significant milestone as early as next year and creating a machine which can outperform the most powerful classical computers in existence

These qubits rely on the strange quantum property of superposition, in which subatomic particles can exist in haze of no fixed state.

Despite the great promise, one of the major stumbling blocks for the development of quantum computers has been demonstrating they can beat classical computers – achieving what computer scientists call quantum supremacy.

But this task requires ever increasing amounts of memory.

According to New Scientist, using existing classical supercomputers to simulate a 6x4 grid of quantum bits (24 qubits) needs 268 MB of memory, but upping the size to a 6x7 grid (42 qubits) takes an enormous 70 terabytes.

Google engineers reported their plans to hit this 42 qubit benchmark in a recent paper, published last month. 

Moving much beyond this barrier becomes unworkable for classical computers due to the enormous amounts of memory required.

The theory remains a long way from the practice, with the technology firm only publicly confirming it has achieved a 9-qubit machine.

Drawing on the strange properties of the quantum world can enable computers to break free from these binary shackles, creating the most powerful problem-solving machines on the planet.

It has also worked with Canadian quantum computing firm D-Wave to push the boundaries of quantum computing, working with Nasa's Ames Research Centre

But if the team can push this to a working machine using a grid of just 50 qubits, it will have created a machine able to beat the best computers which exist today and achieved quantum supremacy.

Commenting on when Google could reach the milestone, Simon Devitt at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan, told New Scientist: 'I'm going to be optimistic and say maybe at the end of next year.' 

He added: 'If they get it done even within the next five years, that will be a tremendous leap forward.'

MailOnline contacted Google for comment. 

While all of this remains in the realm of the theoretical, in practice, creating powerful computers which use quantum bits would enable vastly more calculations to run simultaneously.

The machines wouldn't replace a desktop computer, or necessarily be able to run software, but could help in raw processing power to process data driven problems.

In an era of big data, spanning everything from genetic-based medicine to finance and insurance, finding optimum solutions for specific problems could be life changing.  

GOOGLE AND NASA TEAM UP ON QUANTUM COMPUTING

Pictured is the first generation of D-Wave quantum computers, the predecessor to those used being tested by Nasa and Google

Nasa, Google and the Universities Space Research Association have been working together, installing quantum computers in their Artificial Intelligence laboratories.

In 2013, they announced they would use the D-Wave 2X systems which have a 1000 qubit processor.

The system has twice as many qubits as the previous generation of quantum computers being used by the organisations, but need to operate at temperatures of -459°F.

Doubts have been raised about how effective quantum computers currently are as some research has suggested they are not able to outperform traditional computers.

However, Google said quantum computing is a way of solving some of the more complex problems that current traditional computers struggle with.

They say these systems are better at dealing with 'messy' sources of data where it can be mislabelled, as information often is in the real world.

Writing on its blog, Google said: 'Can we move these ideas from theory to practice, building real solutions on quantum hardware? Answering this question is what the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab is for.

'We hope it helps researchers construct more efficient and more accurate models for everything from speech recognition, to web search, to protein folding.

'We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics.'