How New Breakthroughs in Neutral-atom Quantum Processors Tell the QuEra Computing Story
Abstract: Manipulating information with quantum processors in a useful way has been a long-standing goal for a field that as of now has spawned over a thousand new dedicated organizations, across academia, government, and industry worldwide. Like many industries, innovation occurs both incrementally and non-incrementally. I will describe two cases of the latter: (1) starting six years ago when neutral-atom processors discovered a pathway for scalable quantum simulation, setting the stage for many new discoveries in fundamental science and sub-advantage commercial applications of quantum information processing, and (2) in the last year, when neutral atom processors developed key innovations allowing for scalable control and high-fidelity gates and opened a door for near-term development of error-corrected and fault-tolerant devices. I will describe the myriad of remaining challenges including both technical and commercial – from overcoming decoherence to introducing coherence into a nascent technical ecosystem.
