What is Baidu's Quantum Computer Qianshi?

China's Baidu reveals its first quantum computer called Qianshi.

Photo credit: Photo: Institute for Quantum Computing, Baidu

AUGUST 28TH, 2022 1:25 AM MONTREAL, CANADA

Hey Guys,

As many of you might know from my investing Newsletter StockQuest, I’m pretty bullish long-term on Chinese companies and how innovative they are being.

Reuters brought this up but as usual the SCMP is my primary source. A lot of the Quantum computing coverage in recent years has totally neglected China, which is sort of understandable.

So why is Baidu important? It’s one of the Cloud computing and A.I. leaders of China’s BigTech. Baidu is also a leader in the adoption of robo-taxis in Chinese cities and could be much bigger than Google’s Waymo in this respect.

What is Qianshi?

The Baidu-developed quantum computer, dubbed "Qianshi", has a 10-quantum-bit (qubit) processor, Baidu said in a statement. The Beijing-based company has also developed a 36-qubit quantum chip, it said.

Leading quantum scientist Pan Jianwei is bullish about the potential of Quantum computing. Pan Jianwei is a Chinese quantum physicist, university administrator and professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China. Pan is known for his work in the field of quantum entanglement, quantum information and quantum computers.

China is no strange to plans for the importance of integrating A.I. and quantum computing in the future iteration of Surveillance Capitalism.

On top of the Qianshi news, Baidu also introduced the world's first all-platform quantum hardware-software integration solution that provides access to various quantum chips via mobile app, PC, and cloud. Launched at Quantum Create 2022, a quantum developer conference held in Beijing, this new offering paves the way for the long-awaited industrialization of quantum computing according to the PR.

"Qian Shi", Baidu's industry-level superconducting quantum computer incorporates its hardware platform with Baidu's home-grown software stack.

• Qian Shi offers a stable and substantial quantum computing service to the public with high-fidelity 10 quantum bits (qubits) of power.

• In addition, Baidu has recently completed the design of a 36-qubit superconducting quantum chip with couplers, which demonstrates promising simulation results across key metrics.

Baidu in August, 2022 also started to roll out Robo-taxis pilots to more cities in China. I consider China a few years ahead in both EV adoption and autonomous vehicle integration into major cities than the United States.

The Global Race for Integrating Innovative Technologies

The United States, China and the European Union have initiated massively funded projects in quantum computing, hoping to pull ahead in the fields related to A.I., which is often considered as one of the cornerstones on which the new global supremacy will be determined. This is why I founded AI Supremacy Newsletter and Quantum Foundry both on Substack, I wanted to explore this future.

Thanks for reading. If you want access to more research, articles and perspectives you can upgrade. Quantum Foundry is read by nearly 2,500 free subscribers so far in 2022 and was founded 5 months ago.

Here I go into some further important details.