Local researchers have created one of the world’s largest networks for sharing quantum information — a field of science that depends on paradoxes so strange they’re the basis of science fiction stories.
Flashes of what may become a transformative new technology are coursing through a network of optic fibers under Chicago.— a field of science that depends on paradoxes so strange that Albert Einstein didn’t believe them..The network, which connects the University of Chicago with Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, is a rudimentary version of what scientists hope someday to become the. For now, it’s opened up to businesses and researchers to test fundamentals of quantum information sharing.
With a $500 million federal investment in recent years and $200 million from the state, Chicago, Urbana-Champaign, and Madison form a leading region for quantum information research. While classical computing uses bits of information containing either a 1 or zero, quantum bits, or qubits, are like a coin flipped in the air — they contain both a 1 and zero, to be determined once it’s observed.
Another key aspect is the property of entanglement, in which qubits separated by great distances can still be correlated, so a measurement in one place reveals a measurement far away.