Bringing together the best of two types of quantum computer for the first time, researchers at Google have created a prototype that combines the architecture of both a universal quantum computer and an analogue quantum computer. By digitizing the traditionally analogue computations that can be done with an adiabatic quantum computer, the team’s system is one step closer to a universal quantum computer that could solve any computational problem. This is particularly relevant to some of the more complex and practical applications that scientists hope future quantum computers can tackle, including synthesizing new pharmaceutical drugs or deciphering long-term weather patterns……….
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/65303