中國的百度公佈了其第一台名為“乾始”的量子電腦

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

China's Baidu reveals its first quantum computer called Qianshi

Thu, August 25, 2022 at 1:01 AM

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc revealed its first quantum computer on Thursday and is ready to make it available to external users, joining the global race to apply the technology to practical uses.

The Baidu-developed quantum computer, dubbed "Qianshi", has a 10-quantum-bit (qubit) processor, Baidu said in a statement. The Beijing-based company has also developed a 36-qubit quantum chip, it said.

Governments and companies around the world for years have touted the potential of quantum computing, a form of high-speed calculation at extraordinarily cold temperatures that will bring computers to unprecedented processing speeds.

However, current real-world applications in the field are still very basic and limited to a small group of early clients.

The United States, China and the European Union have initiated massively funded projects in quantum computing, hoping to pull ahead in the field, which is often considered as one of the cornerstones on which the new global supremacy will be determined.

Global governments and companies will invest around $16.4 billion in quantum development by the end of 2027, according to market researcher IDC.

U.S. tech giant IBM has said that it plans to make a quantum computer ready for commercial use in 2025 with a more-than-4,000 qubit processor. IBM has so far released quantum processors with 127 qubits.

Alphabet Inc's Google is also aiming to develop a computer with 1,000,000 qubits by the end of this decade.

 (Reporting by Yingzhi Yang and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

Translation

北京（路透社）- 中國搜索引擎巨頭百度公司週四公佈了其第一台量子電腦，並準備將它提供給外部用戶，加入把這項技術應用於實際用途的全球競賽。

百度在一份聲明中表示，百度開發的量子電腦被稱為 “乾始”，具有 10 個量子位 (qubit) 處理器。它說，這家總部位於北京的公司還開發了一種 36 量子位的量子芯片。

多年來，世界各地的政府和公司一直在吹捧量子電腦的潛力，這是一種在極冷溫度下進行高速計算的形式，它將使計算機達到前所未有的處理速度。

然而，目前該領域的實際應用仍然非常初步，並僅限於一小部分早期客戶。

美國、中國和歐盟已經啟動了大規模資助的量子計算項目，希望在這一領域取得領先，這領域通常被認為是去確立新全球霸權的根本之一。

據市場研究機構 IDC 稱，到 2027 年底，全球政府和公司將投資約 164 億美元用於量子開發。

美國科技巨頭 IBM 曾表示，它計劃在 2025 年製造一款可用於商業用途的量子電腦，其處理器數量超過 4000 個量子位。迄今為止，IBM 目前提供 127 個量子位的量子處理器。

Alphabet Inc. 旗下的谷歌也計劃在本世紀末開發出擁有 1,000,000 個量子位的電腦。

So, Governments and companies around the world for years have touted the potential of quantum computing that will bring computers to unprecedented processing speeds. Let’s wait and see who will win this competition.