Cisco Systems showcased quantum network chips
Cisco Systems showcased a prototype network chip for connecting quantum computers on Tuesday (the 6th), and simultaneously announced the establishment of a brand-new quantum computing laboratory in Santa Monica, California, USA, to advance the development in the field of quantum technology.
Reuters reported that this chip uses some of the same technology as existing network chips and can connect multiple small quantum computers in series to form a larger system. Cisco believes that before quantum computers become widespread, this technology already has practical application value, such as assisting financial companies in synchronizing trading times or helping scientists detect meteorites.
Vijoy Pandey, senior vice president of Outshift, Cisco's innovation incubation division, disclosed, "There are a great many application scenarios. You need to synchronize the clock to make the global data snapshot match the timestamps."
Apart from Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have recently announced their own quantum computing chip plans, and NVIDIA also intends to set up a quantum computing laboratory. In addition, startups including PsiQuantum are also raising hundreds of millions of dollars to build quantum systems.
It is reported that Cisco's strategy is to enable quantum computers to connect with each other, which is different from the aforementioned company's focus on developing more qubits.
Cisco pointed out that this chip was developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Its working principle is to generate "quantum entanglement" between a pair of photons and then send one of the photons to two independent quantum computers respectively. In a short period of time, these quantum computers can communicate instantly through this pair of entangled photons, a quantum physical phenomenon that Einstein also called "spooky action at a distance".
Pandey emphasized that this chip is still in the prototype stage and there is no specific revenue schedule yet. "To build a quantum network, the first fundamental building block is the entanglement chip, and what we are presenting now is this first fundamental building block."
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