First Hybrid Matter-Photon Implementation Promises ‘Entirely Secure’ Quantum Computing at Home

The full potential of next-generation quantum computing can one day be harnessed by millions of individuals and companies thanks to an advancement by a team of experts.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Erik Lucero, Martinis Group, University of California, Santa Barbara)

Challenges in Harnessing Quantum Computing

Quantum computing has been rapidly developing in recent years, providing opportunities for new applications that could transform services in many areas, such as financial services and health care. This technology works differently than conventional computing and is potentially far more powerful.

However, quantum computing has some limitations, as it requires controlled conditions to remain stable. Moreover, there are concerns about data authenticity and the effectiveness of current security and encryption systems.

Some leading providers of cloud-based services, such as Amazon, Google, and IBM, have already provided some elements of quantum computing. Ensuring the privacy and security of customer data is a crucial precursor to scaling up and expanding its use and for developing new applications as the technology advances.

Secured Quantum Computing

A new study by scientists at Oxford University Physics has addressed these challenges. In the paper entitled "Verifiable Blind Quantum Computing with Trapped Ions and Single Photons," the experts used an approach called "blind quantum computing," where two totally separate quantum computing entities are connected in a completely secure way. The new methods can be scaled up to large quantum computations.

Led by Dr. Peter Drmota, the research team has shown for the first time that quantum computing in the cloud can be accessed, scalable, and practical. This can give people complete security and data privacy, in addition to its ability to verify its authenticity.

Dr. Drmota and his colleagues created a system comprising a fiber network link between a simple photon-detecting device and a quantum computing server. This was done remotely, accessing its cloud services at an independent computer, enabling blind quantum computing over a network.

Every computation sustains a correction that must be applied to all that follows and needs real-time information to conform to the algorithm. In this study, the research team used a unique combination of quantum memory and photons to achieve this goal. Never in history have the issues of data and code privacy been more urgently debated than in the present era of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

This breakthrough has the potential to unlock the transformation of cloud-based quantum computing. Using blind quantum computing, users can access remote quantum computers to process confidential data using secret algorithms. They can even verify the correctness of results without revealing any useful information. In other words, this concept is a significant step forward in quantum computing and keeping the security of online information.

As quantum computers become more capable, users will aim to use them with complete security and privacy over networks. According to the researchers, their new results mark a step change in capability in this respect. The results can ultimately lead to the commercial development of devices to plug into laptops to protect data when people are using quantum cloud computing services.