The device itself is nothing you would call spectacular. Bavaria’s Minister of Science, Markus Blume, agrees. A white bin, behind it a few shelves packed with electronics. But the fact that it is where it is, namely right next to the supercomputer of the Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ) in Garching near Munich, is something special, even a world premiere. In cooperation with the German-Finnish start-up IQM and other partners, the scientists at the LRZ have for the first time connected a functioning quantum computer to the supercomputer there. Which is why the minister, who ultimately approved a lot of money for the project, is also stopping by in Garching.
The federal government has invested even more money in the Q-EXA project under the predecessor of the current Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Anja Karliczek, who released 40 million euros and thus financed almost 90 percent of the project. Stark-Watzinger, who had just come under heavy fire, was now able to take the credit for it and spoke of tough competition with geopolitical implications that must be faced.
The most important question, however, is probably this: what can we actually do with the system as it stands now – costing 45 million euros just for the quantum computer and its connection? If this means applications such as those longed for by industry and research in order to finally be able to calculate things like the incredibly complex folding of proteins, then the answer is simply: nothing.
The combination of the two different types of computers should one day be suitable for exactly these problems and a whole range of others. But the quantum computer in Garching is still too small to do this. So what are all the millions for?
Well, the project participants still have to find out how the two fundamentally different types of computers can best work together. “We have a lot of young talent here who want to research and develop quantum computers,” says Dieter Kranzlmüller, computer science professor and head of the LRZ. Jan Goetz from project partner IQM, which supplied the quantum computer, adds that there is a lot of value in developing the algorithms. These are mathematical calculation instructions that tell the system what to do and how. Many companies in the business world are also already working on getting themselves ready for the era of quantum computers, for example by hiring experts.
With each qubit, the computing power doubles
It is therefore important that there are already systems on which such algorithms can be tested. But Goetz also says that so far only “toy problems” have been solved. The aim is to proof-of-concept to prove that it works. The biggest obstacles on the way to quantum computers that can do more are, firstly, increasing the number of qubits. These are the bits that are used for calculations and which have completely different properties to the bits of ordinary computers. Secondly, today’s quantum computers still produce too many errors.
Quantum computers differ from conventional computers in that they exploit the quantum properties of bits. These can represent not only two states – 0 or 1 – but both at the same time. With each qubit, the computing power doubles – theoretically. In practice, errors are added. And they increase as the number of qubits increases.
The Garching quantum computer has 20 qubits. However, the current state of development is only the beginning, “the very first step of a long journey,” as Minister Blume put it. In Bavaria, in order to endure the long journey, a network of science, start-ups and industry has been set up, the Munich Quantum Valley. Bavaria has so far contributed around 300 million euros to this.
In Garching and the other locations, they now hope that the money will continue to flow so that, despite excellent research, they do not end up being left behind again with this technology.