sscientists demonstrated quantum teleportation – sending tiny units of quantum information known as qubits – for the first time.
The qubits were transferred more than 27 miles and moved faster than the speed of light.
Scientists are hopeful that this’ quantum teleportation‘could completely revolutionize how computers work.
Quantum communication systems would be faster and more secure than the usual Internet networks currently in operation.
The discovery was made by a group led by Caltech, with experts from Fermilab, AT&T, Harvard University, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and University of Calgary.
“This is an important achievement on the way to building technology that will redefine how we conduct global communication.”
The study, which was shared on PRX Quantum, said that ‘teleportation’ was instantaneous – in fact, it was actually faster than the speed of light – and the researchers found that there is a ‘more than 90% ratet faithfulness rate’.
‘Fidelity’ is what is used to measure how close the final qubit signal was to the original sent.
Speaking to the Vice, Spentzouris added: “We wanted to go beyond this type of research and take important steps on a path to real-world applications for quantum communications and networks and to test fundamental ideas in physics.
“So when we finally made it, the team was overjoyed, very proud to achieve these high-quality results and breaking records.
2 months ago“And we are very excited to be able to move on to the next phase, using the know-how and technologies of this work for the deployment of quantum networks.”
Maria Spiropulu, Shang-Yi Ch’en Caltech physics professor, said: “We are very proud to have reached this milestone in sustainable, high-performance and scalable quantum teleportation systems.
“The results will be further improved with system updates that we hope to complete by the second quarter of 2021.”
Although, before we all get really excited, it will be a while before we all use quantum networks.
Spiropulu told Vice: “People on social media are asking if they should sign up with a quantum internet provider (kidding, of course).
“We need (a lot) more R&D work.”
Well, me and my super slow broadband speed are ready and waiting, guys.