A new quantum computing installation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee leverages diamond-based hardware to merge quantum information technologies with classical computing systems to spark large gains in computational power.
In a collaboration with Australian company Quantum Brilliance, ORNL announced on Tuesday it will host one of the company’s hybrid full-stack platforms on premises to begin implementing quantum-powered computational elements with current high-performance computing.
Merging both quantum and classical systems is expected to offer users better scientific research outcomes via advanced computational abilities. In theory, this means big advancements in fields like computational chemistry, materials science, high-performance computing and more.
“By hosting a Quantum Brilliance system on site, we’ll be maturing the real mechanics of hybrid computing — co‑scheduling, end‑to‑end performance tuning, data and workflow orchestration, workforce development and more — so we can eventually move HPC-quantum integration from a conceptual pilot to a fully embedded capability within leadership computing,” said ORNL’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility Program Director Ashley Barker.
Quantum Brilliance’s products hinge on using properties of diamonds that help reduce external noise — which can introduce errors into calculations — in quantum computing operations. Quantum Brilliance created its own quantum processing units that take advantage of synthetic diamonds’ atomic structures to overcome some of the current challenges in scaling a fault-tolerant quantum computing system.
“Diamond is extremely hard, so even at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, there isn’t sufficient thermal energy to generate the vibrations that would typically disrupt qubit coherence,” said Quantum Brilliance CEO Mark Luo. “This intrinsic stability allows our QPUs to function without the complexity and cost of cryogenics, laser and vacuum systems. This allowed us to engineer a revolutionary QPU solution that operates efficiently at room temperature while dramatically reducing size, weight and power consumption.”
ORNL is one of the national labs working to innovate in the quantum sciences and technology realm, partnering with other federal entities and private sector companies to advance and deploy QIST systems.
“Leveraging the potential power of quantum computing in a hybrid ecosystem is important to the nation and aligns with ORNL’s mission of boosting innovation, energy, competitiveness and national security,” Barker said.
