Intel horse ridge, new commercial chips for quantum computing

Intel has introduced its new cryogenic control chip, codenamed Horse Ridge, which will accelerate the development of quantum computing systems. Intel has stated that the Horse Ridge chip will be available for commercially viable quantum computers. These quantum chips were jointly developed by Intel Labs and QuTech, a joint venture between TU Delft and TNO (Netherlands Applied Scientific Research Organization).

Intel Horse Ridge, New Commercial Chips for Quantum Computing

The Horse Ridge cryogenic control chip can control multiple qubits (quantum bits) at the same time, an essential feature required to build large-scale commercial quantum computing systems, according to Intel. Intel believes that one of the significant challenges of quantum computing is not the production of qubits, computing elements that exist in multiple states simultaneously, but interconnects and control electronics.

Most of today's quantum computers rely on existing electronic tools to bind the quantum system inside a cryogenic cooler, which controls the performance of qubits. While most chips and quantum computers require being placed at absolute zero to function properly, the Horse Ridge chip can operate at approximately 4 Kelvin, which is slightly hotter than absolute zero. Since each of these particles is controlled individually, cabling limits the ability to scale quantum computing systems to hundreds or thousands of qubits to reach significant performance levels. The Horse Ridge SoC uses a complex signal processing technique to translate the instructions into microwave pulses that manipulate the qubit states. Due to this fact, this card can significantly simplify the design of quantum computers, hence its importance.

Horse Ridge is a highly integrated mixed signal SoC that brings qubit control to the quantum cooler, as close as possible to the particles themselves - effectively reducing the number of leads by hundreds going to and from the quantum cooler. Horse Ridge is programmed with instructions that correlate to some basic qubit operations.

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This chip uses Intel's proven 22nm FinFET process technology that has existed since 2012.

We will see if quantum computing is viable at the end user level in a few years, it seems that we are still far from it, but progress is being made. We will keep you informed.

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