{"id":170070,"date":"2025-11-08T16:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/170070\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T16:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T16:59:11","slug":"behold-helios-the-most-powerful-quantum-computer-on-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/170070\/","title":{"rendered":"Behold Helios, the Most Powerful Quantum Computer on the Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Computing firm Quantinuum has provided the hardware for many outstanding<\/a> feats in<\/a> quantum computing<\/a> over the past few years. It looks like that winning streak will continue with its latest model, Helios<\/a>\u2014which, as of today, is the most powerful quantum computer in the world.<\/p>\n

The firm officially announced<\/a> the commercial release of Helios on November 5, describing it as \u201ca technological marvel redefining the possible.\u201d Helios features 98 qubits\u2014the most basic units of information in quantum computers\u2014a near twofold increase from its predecessor, H2. Helios has a fidelity, or accuracy, of 99.9% across all qubit pairs, making it the most accurate quantum computer as well.<\/p>\n

These hardware improvements will greatly advance scientific endeavors in quantum computing, the company said. Already, several research teams from Quantinuum\u2019s private partners have used Helios\u2019s computing power for complex projects, according to the release.<\/p>\n

The company shared a paper<\/a> on the technical details of Helios, as well as a preprint<\/a> of a project that used it to perform large-scale simulations of superconductivity technology.<\/p>\n

A stellar device <\/p>\n

Very simply put, the circuits of a quantum computer are made up of multiple \u201cgates\u201d that contain physical qubits. Unlike the binary \u201cbits\u201d of classical computers, qubits can have an infinite number of possible orientations under certain conditions. This allows quantum computers to process an exponential amount of data at faster rates.<\/p>\n

\"HeliOSA close-up of the Helios chip. \u00a9 Quantinuum <\/p>\n

That said, the sensitivity that makes quantum computers so powerful also leaves a lot of room for pesky errors to enter the system\u2014including faulty qubit gates. According to Quantinuum, however, Helios achieved a fidelity of 99.9975% for single-qubit gates and 99.921% for two-qubit gates across the system\u2019s 98 physical qubits.<\/p>\n

As a result, Helios was able to perform a benchmark task<\/a> previously used by Google to demonstrate quantum advantage that would take 10 septillion years for a classical computer to replicate, the company reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would need to harvest every star in the universe to power a classical machine that could do the same calculations we did with Helios,\u201d said Anthony Ransford, Helios\u2019s lead architect, in the release. Impressively, Helios only needed about the same amount of power as a single data rack.<\/p>\n

Reminder: quantum computers are here <\/p>\n

A lively discourse in quantum computing involves coming up with ways powerful quantum computers can support\u2014rather than necessarily upend<\/a>\u2014classical computers in completing complex tasks. Quantinuum is no exception, reporting in a separate blog<\/a> post that researchers used Helios as a \u201cqubit-based laboratory\u201d to explore light-induced superconductivity.<\/p>\n

In this case, Helios was able to calculate an astounding load of data simulating electron pairs for a famous crystal model\u2014sometimes called the \u201cRosetta Stone\u201d of achieving superconductivity at higher temperatures. The sheer size of Helios\u2019s computing capacity enabled researchers to fine-tune various aspects of the simulation to their liking, according to Quantinuum.<\/p>\n

\"HeliOSAn actual image of the 98 single atoms used for computation inside Quantinuum\u2019s Helios quantum computer for an experiment on superconductivity. \u00a9 Quantinuum <\/p>\n

\u201cThese results prove that our computers can help us understand light-induced superconductivity [with] a new level of control and insight,\u201d the post noted. \u201cIn the long run, Helios and its successors will become essential tools for materials science\u2014not just confirming theories but generating new ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been following quantum computing, you\u2019re probably no stranger to Quantinuum\u2019s H2 model\u2014as I previously mentioned, this processor has been behind some of the most noteworthy developments in quantum computing of late. So, if Helios is as fantastic of an upgrade as Quantinuum suggests, I\u2019m very excited to see what researchers will find using the new, shiny computer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Computing firm Quantinuum has provided the hardware for many outstanding feats in quantum computing over the past few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[18,19,17,452,50701,5022,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-170070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-physics","12":"tag-quantinuum","13":"tag-quantum-computers","14":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115515148491815757","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}