A Chinese company successfully delivered a self-developed quantum computer core device of impedance-matched quantum parametric amplifier (IMPA) to its users, marking a new level of China's R&D and industrialization in the quantum computing field.

Jia Zhilong, deputy director of the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center announced the delivery on Monday.

As the first-stage amplifier for quantum chip signal, the IMPA can effectively improve signal reading fidelity and signal-to-noise ratio, and it has become one of the indispensable core devices to develop practical quantum computers, said Jia. 

The Chinese company, Origin Quantum Computing Technology Co, is a quantum computing company based in east China's Anhui Province.

Core device of quantum computer

According to Jia, the IMPA's equivalent noise temperature is close to the quantum limit noise level.

However, the equivalent noise temperature of conventional amplifiers far exceeds that noise level, and the effective signal is usually submerged by noise, so they can only be used for post-stage amplification of quantum links.

In the process of developing a practical quantum computer, the reading fidelity and signal-to-noise ratio of quantum chips are important indexes to measure the performance of qubits.

With a relatively high fidelity of reading and controlling of a quantum chip, quantum error correction can be performed to further improve the control precision of the quantum computer.

Self-developed device, promising applications

Developed independently by Origin Quantum, the IMPA is designed in a highly integrated manner, which can work at extremely low temperatures of 10mK-200mK.

It also has very low power consumption and is easy to be embed into large-scale application systems.

Concerning its applications, Jia said the IMPA can be used not only in the field of quantum computing, but also in fields such as precision measurement.

"We expect the delivery to play a more important role in future engineering applications in the field of science and technology."

China's latest quantum computer Wukong will feature a chip with over 64 qubits, Zhang Hui, manager of Origin Quantum, told guancha.cn in an interview, comparing to IBM's Osprey quantum processor with 433 qubits and Google's quantum chip Bristlecone with 72 qubits.

Zhang said the company lags behind the world's leading quantum computing players like IBM and Google in terms of hardware products and development, but has some advantages in the software and operating systems, and views the former as the way forward. 

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