D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) has made significant progress in the development of high coherence qubits, which is expected to have a profound impact on its future quantum technologies. As the world's first commercial supplier of quantum computers, D-Wave has designed and operated fluxonium qubits that demonstrate quantum properties comparable to the best reported in scientific literature.
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The fluxonium qubit, pioneered by Michel Devoret and colleagues at Yale University in 2009, has gained attention as a promising candidate for next-generation gate model quantum computing architectures. Leveraging their expertise in building flux-like qubit quantum technologies, D-Wave explored the use of fluxonium in its own technology development efforts. Through manufacturing and testing fluxonium qubits in a 2-dimensional circuit geometry, D-Wave achieved impressive coherence properties with relaxation times exceeding 100 microseconds. These results align with the current state-of-the-art for similar qubits. Additionally, the effective temperature of D-Wave's fluxonium, measured at 18 millikelvin, ranks among the best reported in scientific literature for superconducting qubits.
Mark Johnson, SVP of quantum technologies and systems products at D-Wave, commented, "These results demonstrate that fluxonium is a viable candidate qubit for D-Wave's gate model quantum computing architectures. We have also discovered that fluxonium can address some of the known limitations of other superconducting gate model qubits. This breakthrough will significantly influence D-Wave's hardware development and further establish our technical leadership, showcasing our ability to design, manufacture, and operate high-coherence fluxonium qubits that rival the best in the world."
For more technical information on the high coherence fluxonium test circuits and their measurements, a detailed technical report can be accessed here: https://www.dwavesys.com/media/e42bbtcw/fluxonium-coherence_external.pdf