China completes the world's largest ion trap quantum simulation

This is the largest quantum simulation or calculation performed to date, which is expected to pave the way for the birth of large-scale quantum computing.

A team of Chinese scientists has completed the world's largest ion-trap quantum simulation, with precise single-qubit resolution, marking a significant advance in the pursuit of large-scale quantum computing.

Typical quantum simulation results of the 300-ion long-range transverse field Ising model. (Source: Nature).

The ion trap - a device that stores ions in a confined space through electromagnetic fields, has the potential to help realize large-scale quantum computing.

However, the main challenge in this method is to simultaneously maintain stable ion trapping and precise control of a large number of ions.

Quantum simulations involving about 200 ions have been reported. However, the inability to distinguish the state of each ion has hindered the extraction of important data, creating a barrier to the development of more flexible and scalable quantum computing applications in the future.

Tsinghua University researchers used frozen monolithic ion trap technology and a 2-D scheme.

The result was the first stable trapping of 512 ions. Additionally, the team successfully performed quantum state measurements with '1-qubit resolution' on 300 ions.

This is the largest quantum simulation or calculation performed to date, which is expected to pave the way for the birth of large-scale quantum computing.

The research has just been published in the scientific journal Nature.