Intel Building a Future Computer That Will ‘Look Like No Other’

Anne Matsuura, holding an Intel wafer full of spin qubits, leads a research team working to build the computer system to run a quantum processor chip — the algorithms, software, applications, architecture — and what the computer might look like. Since 1959, when American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman introduced the concept of using quantum effects for computation, physicists have worked with quantum algorithms and manufactured small numbers of quantum bits (qubits). But until the last few years, the concept of a quantum computer was more science fiction than reality, more physics experiment than business opportunity. Today, the race is on to build a commercially viable quantum computer; Anne and other quantum experts predict it’s at least about a decade away. “A quantum computer will not look like a classical computer,” Anne says. “This is a machine that’s going to look like no other that’s been built before.”