Rebirth of science and technology academic master

Yes, this kind of strange phenomenon is currently occurring in the field of scientific research.

Many talents in the United States no longer enter the fields of scientific research and engineering as before, but choose to enter the financial field. After all, finance can make money much faster, and it is easy to become millionaires, multi-millionaires or even billionaires.

On the contrary, researchers in the field of scientific research can earn more than ten or two hundred thousand dollars a year, and in the field of engineering, their income is less than one hundred thousand dollars a year. Unless they are truly talented, they can earn more. Compared with Chinese researchers, this amount of money is indeed good, but you must know that the purchasing power is not necessarily calculated. Maybe researchers and engineers can still have enough food and clothing, but it is definitely out of the question to live a good life.

As for China, it has cultivated a large number of researchers and engineers in the past two decades, so much so that many scholars in the field of social sciences openly proposed that China's demographic dividend is almost coming to an end, but China's engineer dividend has just begun.

Look at every Internet company and computer company, how many programmers work overtime every day to type code tirelessly. Overseas companies need a month, but Chinese companies dare to produce results in a week. The results are not only better but also cheaper.

996 is a blessing! ?

For Internet companies, 996 is indeed a blessing, because programmers don’t know that they work more than 15 hours a day and sleep directly in the office.

As for dating, programmers will only despise you. In their eyes, girlfriends are scary creatures, and I’m still single!

As for engineering men such as civil engineering, it is even more common for them to go directly into the deep mountains and forests as soon as they graduate, building tunnels and building bridges, which are not even found in a village within a hundred miles. They eat and live on the construction site and live an isolated life. Life.

Therefore, there are no infrastructure maniacs. They are just a group of engineering men silently venting their energy and squandering their youth in the wilderness.

How many male engineering men vowed to be in love with their girlfriends when they graduated, and they agreed to get married by the end of the year. They went to Shangougou, and when they had tens of thousands of dollars in their pockets, they happily went to find their girlfriends to get the certificate. In the end, they often saw their girlfriends. Holding the hand of a strange man was extremely intimate, even with a pregnant belly, and he inexplicably became his ex.

Then, I was given a good guy card!

Yes, things are so cruel!

Even Zhang Xuefeng gritted his teeth when talking about his major, and advised people who are taking postgraduate entrance examinations not to apply for these majors.

It is the engineer dividend that makes America often propose a concept and it is still in the PPT stage. As a result, it doesn't take long to turn around and find that China has realized the concept and entered the mass production stage.

Take a look at the Ford-class aircraft carrier, which is known as the most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world. However, after more than ten years, it is still far away from being put into service, let alone forming combat effectiveness. China's 003 aircraft carrier has already been launched. It will be officially put into service in the next two years and handed over to the navy to enter the naval combat sequence.

The same situation is also true in the field of quantum computers. The United States occupies the dominant position in chips and has a huge advantage. However, as a latecomer, China came up with the first quantum computer before the United States, and this quantum computer The birth of it was the result of the efforts of many engineers day and night, which led to its first birth.

In society today, there is a saying that it took four generations of sacrifices for the birth of the Chinese Republic, that it took a generation of sacrifices to build an industrialized country from an agricultural country, and that it took a generation of sacrifices to build an industrialized country from the ground up. Industrialized countries became modern industrialized countries.

There are a few people who truly understand the bitterness of this.

Qin Yuanqing saw the quantum computer project team, hundreds of gray-haired old people. These were the millennium, when the country officially established a project to develop quantum computers. These years were still in their prime, but nearly twenty years later, they They all turned into a gray-haired old man.

For example, one of them, Academician Guo, in the 1990s, learned about the poor status of domestic quantum information field, resolutely resigned from his professorship abroad, gave up generous salary conditions, and chose to return to China!

After returning to China, Academician Guo started from scratch, building a team bit by bit, and led China's quantum information industry from the extremely ignorant era to the proud achievement of now being able to rank among the world's first-class teams.

Even when the funding for scientific research was insufficient at the beginning, Academician Guo donated all his accumulated salary income overseas.

"Teacher, Academician Qin is here!" Professor Pan said respectfully to Academician Guo.

Speaking of which, Professor Pan is still a student of Academician Guo, but Academician Guo has always kept a low profile and rarely appeared outside. Starting in 2010, he directly pushed the young and powerful Professor Pan to the position of leader of quantum computers, allowing him to lead quantum computers. Forward.

"Academician Guo!" Qin Yuanqing hurriedly stepped forward to shake hands with Academician Guo. Qin Yuanqing also admired this old academician.

When he returned to China, Academician Guo was in his prime, giving advice and scolding Fang Qiu. However, more than 20 years later, Academician Guo has become gray-haired and thin. He devoted his best youth to the country. , dedicated everything he had to the rejuvenation of China.

"Academician Qin, I have to trouble you!" Academician Guo smiled kindly: "These people have already achieved their best, but their talents are limited and they cannot make greater breakthroughs."

"Academician Qin should also know the importance of quantum computers. Once the United States really takes the lead in mastering a complete quantum computer, then China may face a blockade in the field of quantum computers, and we will have to suffer the hardships of traditional computers again. ." Academician Guo said.

Qin Yuanqing nodded solemnly, and then declined the welcome banquet proposed by President Bao of the University of Science and Technology of China. Qin Yuanqing immediately invested in the research and development of quantum computers.

There are three theoretically feasible ways to implement quantum computers - one is a superconducting circuit, the other is a semiconductor quantum chip, and the last one is an ion trap.

Because China's work in this area started too late, China is far behind the United States in the two implementation forms of superconducting circuits and ion traps. This kind of backwardness is not just one or two positions, but a distance of tens or hundreds of meters.

As for semiconductor quantum chips, they are barely at the same level, but still lagging behind the United States.

It can be seen that America's leading position and heritage in the field of science and technology are indeed very terrifying. And you must know that the United States has been groping forward for many years. As a result, China has spent the past thirty years running, or even catching up at rocket speed, and now it can see the back of the United States.

As for quantum computers, they belong to a new field, and the difficulty of developing a quantum computer can be imagined.

What conditions need to be met for a usable quantum computer?

The fidelity of single-qubit logic gates and dual-qubit logic gates must reach more than 99%, while the number of qubits must reach more than dozens, and the operation speed and decoherence time should be within a reasonable range.

To put it simply, there are four conditions in total:

The first is qubits, which are just like the bits of a classical computer. For a classical computer, the more bits there are, the larger the number of operations can be, and the stronger its ability. The same is true for quantum computers.

The second is quantum logic gates. Just like the AND, OR, NOT and other logic circuits of classical computers, single-qubit logic gates and double-qubit logic gates are the basic units of quantum computers.

The third is fidelity. The fidelity needs to reach 99%, which means that only one calculation error can be tolerated in a hundred operations. The purpose is to successfully complete quantum computing, and the error rate of each logic gate cannot exceed 1%.

Fourth, the operating speed and decoherence time, the faster the better for the former, and the longer the better for the latter, but often both cannot be satisfied at the same time.

Among these four conditions, the one that best reflects the quality of a quantum computer is the first one, the number of qubits.

Why does the world think that so far, there is no real quantum computer in the world and does not recognize the quantum computer of the University of Science and Technology of China as the world's first quantum computer? It is because these four conditions have not been met.

What Qin Yuanqing needs to solve is semiconductor quantum chips and algorithms. Semiconductor quantum chips are okay. Qin Yuanqing only needs guidance, and naturally there will be researchers to do it. As for the algorithm, Qin Yuanqing had to do it himself.

Qin Yuanqing worked on quantum semiconductor chips, mainly on semiconductor materials and chip design. To a large extent, semiconductor materials can be said to be one of the important factors restricting the improvement of chip qubits. This part of the research work is extremely important. On the other hand, chip design is another core focus.

Qin Yuanqing did not study according to the current chips, but chose carbon-based chips!

At present, the development of global semiconductor materials is approaching the physical limit. TSMC, the strongest in the field of integrated circuit foundry, has completed the commercial mass production of 3 nanometer process and plans to put it into production in 2020. As for the 2 nanometer process, it is also moving forward and is estimated to be close to Research and development completed.

Among China's strongest semiconductor manufacturers, they are basically stuck on the 7-nanometer process, and there is still a two-generation gap with TSMC. Even Huaxin Technology, with the strong support provided by Qin Yuanqing, has only just mastered the commercial mass production of the 5-nanometer process, and it will not be put into production until at least 2019.

Qin Yuanqing does not believe that traditional semiconductor chips can be suitable for quantum computers. He is more optimistic about carbon-based chips. After all, traditional semiconductors have reached their physical limits, the ceiling is clearly visible, and their potential is almost reaching its end. It is undoubtedly inappropriate to use traditional semiconductors. If you want to achieve a breakthrough in this area, you have to shift your attention to other places and find other semiconductor materials to break through the bottleneck.