Creating a miniaturized quantum computer that can be carried by an average person is a significant technical challenge, and currently, it remains a highly complex and ambitious goal. There are several reasons why achieving such a portable quantum computer poses significant feasibility challenges:
Qubit Stability: Quantum computers require extremely precise and stable control over their qubits to maintain the fragile quantum states necessary for computation. The miniaturization process could introduce additional noise, interference, or thermal effects, which could degrade the stability of the qubits and negatively impact their performance.
Cooling and Environmental Control: Quantum computers need to operate at extremely low temperatures to minimize interference from the environment and maintain the coherence of qubits. Maintaining these low temperatures, typically near absolute zero, is challenging and requires specialized cooling systems. Miniaturizing these cooling systems while ensuring their effectiveness and reliability is a considerable engineering hurdle.
Scalability: Current quantum computers have relatively low qubit counts, typically ranging from a few to a few hundred qubits. To achieve practical quantum computation that surpasses classical computers in certain applications, a much larger number of qubits is required. Accommodating a large number of qubits within a miniaturized device while maintaining the necessary control and connectivity is an ongoing research challenge.
Control Infrastructure: Quantum computers require complex control and measurement systems to manipulate and read out the qubits accurately. These control systems often involve a considerable amount of infrastructure, including high-performance electronics and precise calibration mechanisms. Shrinking this infrastructure while maintaining its functionality and reliability is another significant hurdle.
Error Correction: Quantum computers are inherently prone to errors due to factors such as environmental noise, imperfections in hardware components, and imperfect control operations. Implementing error correction techniques is crucial to mitigate these errors and improve the overall performance of quantum computations. However, error correction typically requires additional qubits and computational resources, making miniaturization more challenging.
While the miniaturization of quantum computers is an active area of research, it is difficult to predict when and to what extent a fully portable quantum computer will become feasible. Advancements in technologies such as qubit stability, cooling systems, control infrastructure, and error correction techniques are necessary to overcome the current obstacles. It is likely to take considerable time and breakthroughs in various fields before we can achieve the miniaturization required for a portable quantum computer that can be carried by an average person.