7 ways to win the quantum race Superconducting uses an electrical current, flowing through special semiconductor chips cooled to near absolute zero, to produce computational “qubits.” Google, IBM, and Intel are pursuing this approach, which has so far been the front-runner. Ion trap relies on charged atoms that are manipulated by lasers in a vacuum, which helps to reduce noisy interference that can contribute to errors. Industrial giant Honeywell is betting on this technique. So is IonQ, a startup with backing from Alphabet. Neutral Atom Similar to the ion-trap method, except it uses, you guessed it, neutral atoms. Physicist Mikhail Lukin’s lab at Harvard is a pioneer. Annealing designed to … Continue reading Robert Hackett