China News Service, Hefei, September 5 (Reporter Zhang Qiang) A white barrel-shaped equipment stands in the center of the laboratory, and an auxiliary equipment shaped like an air-conditioning outdoor unit behind the wall continues to operate. The equipment being installed and debugged is the same series of superconducting quantum computers as the "Zuchong No. 3".
This is what the reporter saw on the 5th at HKUST Guodun Quantum Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guodun Quantum"). On the same day, the online theme promotion event "Looking at China in the First Year, Rising Jianghuai" entered the Hefei High-tech Zone to explore the latest progress of China's quantum technology from laboratories to industrial applications.
"This complete machine relies on the dilution refrigerator of the same series as the EZQ F1500, which was recently released in June this year." Gu Fengbo, head of the Guodun Quantum User Service Department, told reporters that superconducting quantum chips must work stably in extremely low temperature and low-noise environments. The dilution refrigerator is like installing a "super air conditioner" on a quantum computer, and the EZQ F1500 single-core large cooling capacity technical indicators are at the most advanced international level.
According to Gu Fengbo, Guodun Quantum has delivered six complete superconducting quantum computing machines. Among them, the "Tianyan-287" equipped with the same chip as the "Zuchong No. 3" has completed acceptance and can handle specific problems 450 million times faster than the world's fastest supercomputer; the "Tianyan-504" with the largest number of bits per unit in China has also been put into operation. Up to now, the "Tianyan" quantum computing cloud platform has covered more than 60 countries and regions, with a cumulative number of visits exceeding 50 million times.
"Ten years ago, a measurement and control system supporting 8 bits cost about 6 million yuan abroad, and it was not necessarily available." Gu Fengbo said that from measurement and control systems to dilution refrigerators, Guodun Quantum has broken through various constraints step by step, and now has become one of the few companies in the world that can provide complete superconducting quantum computing solutions. In the first half of this year, the company’s quantum computing revenue exceeded quantum communications.
If quantum computing is still "running towards the future", then quantum communication has already "entered life".
In the exhibition hall, test engineer Liu Di demonstrated a "quantum secret conversation" call: a mobile phone equipped with a quantum SIM card made a call, and the call was encrypted in real time by a quantum key. Once eavesdropped, all the other party hears is noise.
"Currently, there are more than 6 million users of Quantum Secret Chat and MeSince." Liu Di said that from government affairs offices to daily calls, quantum security is becoming a service within reach of ordinary people.
Behind this is an ever-expanding quantum communication network. Hefei's 1,147-kilometer quantum metropolitan area network has been connected to 8 core stations and 159 access stations, serving nearly 500 party and government agencies and 380 enterprises. It is the largest quantum metropolitan area network in the country. Nationwide, the first phase of the national wide-area quantum secure communication backbone network has a total ground mileage of more than 12,000 kilometers, covering about 80 cities.
"Quantum technology is not a lofty concept." Gu Fengbo said that in addition to encrypted calls, products such as quantum security intercoms and secret voice headsets have been launched one after another; cold atom gravimeters have been delivered to earthquake prevention and disaster reduction units in many provinces for geological survey and catastrophe prevention; single-photon imaging radars are also in trial operation in the field of water conservancy and energy...
Hefei is the best window to observe China's quantum information industry: from the successful test of China's first quantum secure telephone network in 2008, to the world's first large-scale quantum communication network, the long-distance quantum secure communication fiber optic trunk line "Beijing-Shanghai Trunk Line", and then to the successive launch of "Zuchongzhihao" and "Jiuzhanghao", this city has emerged as a "double highland" for quantum scientific research and industry.
Currently, Anhui is promoting the quantum information "Thousand Scenarios" action, planning to build 1,000 quantum application scenarios in 2027 and 3,000 quantum application scenarios in 2030. "Using technology is the greatest support for innovation." Gu Fengbo said.
