Traditional computers rely on electrons to perform computational tasks, but electrons can never match the speed and processing power offered by photons, tiny packets of light that travel at an astonishing 300,000 km/s. Unfortunately, we cannot make classical computers run on photons because they need electric charges to process and store information. On the other hand, photons are chargeless and do not interact easily with electronic components like transistors in classical circuits. This is why scientists have been trying to develop photonic quantum computers, an advanced computing concept that uses mirrors, beam splitters, and optical fibers to manipulate photons. However, the word “concept” in the above paragraph seems to be no longer required as a Canada-based quantum computing company named Xanadu has created the world’s first scalable and networked photonic quantum computer prototype. “It is the very first time we—or anyone, for that matter—have combined all the subsystems necessary to implement universal and fault-tolerant quantum computation in a photonic architecture.” the Xanadu team said.

Full story : Aurora, a new photonic quantum computer from Xanadu, overcomes qubit limitations with light-based technology.