Researchers with Duke University and IonQ, one of the leading quantum computing solution developers, have announced the development of a new operation unit in quantum computing: the quantum gate. Leveraging IonQ's ion chain-based quantum computing solutions, the new N-qubit Toffoli quantum gate expands upon the standard two-qubit gates ubiquitous in the quantum computing industry and instead allows multiple qubits to be leveraged simultaneously for the same workload, leading to more powerful and more efficient quantum circuits. Up to now, N-qubit Tofolli gates had only been theoretically demonstrated.
"No other available quantum computing architectures—not even other ion-based quantum computers—are able to utilize this new family of N-qubit gates," said IonQ co-Founder and Chief Scientist Prof. Christopher Monroe. "This is because IonQ's quantum computers uniquely feature full connectivity and a wide communication bus that allows all qubits to talk to each other simultaneously."
The qubit and gate model of current quantum computers generally employ a universal set of operations, such as single-qubit rotations and two-qubit controlled-NOT gates. However, these require that workloads be distributed amongst several, singular paired qubits (which aren't aware of other qubit states) to achieve the required acceleration, which is significantly less efficient than distributing the workload across a many-qubit (N-qubit) system. N-qubit Toffoli gates unlock the ability to perform any desired Boolean function computation in a reversible manner — which is particularly important for quantum computing operations due to their probabilistic nature.
"This discovery is an example of us continuing to build on the leading technical architecture we've established. It adds to the unique and powerful capabilities we are developing for quantum computing applications," said Peter Chapman, CEO at IonQ.
