MOSCOW, July 13 Quantum technologies should be actively implemented in the nuclear industry, making it an integral part of its technological landscape, says the CEO of the state corporation «Rosatom» Alexei Likhachev.
Quantum computing technologies in Russia are still at the initial stage of their creation, but they should already be put into practice, the head of Rosatom noted, speaking on Thursday at a plenary meeting of the Future Technologies Forum.
«They need to be drawn into the nuclear industry at a faster pace, «on trust» and industrialized as soon as possible, and made an integral part of the technological landscape,» stressed Likhachev.
“On the other hand, we understand that, taking into account the huge external pressure, we need to lend a shoulder to our scientists too — in terms of the component base (of quantum computers — ed.), in some installations … And the work of the state corporation is largely set up for this and our other colleagues,» he added.
The Atomic State Corporation is responsible for the creation of a quantum computer in Russia and fulfills the Russian roadmap for quantum computing. Quantum computers are a new class of computing devices that, thanks to the use of quantum effects, are able to solve problems that are inaccessible to the most powerful «classical» supercomputers. In particular, this is modeling the behavior of complex molecules for the development of new drugs and materials, complex logistics tasks, working with big data, and many others.
In classical computing devices, all information is decomposed into bits — 0 or 1, while in quantum devices the smallest unit of information is a quantum bit (qubit) that can simultaneously be in both states at once — both 0 and 1. The number of states in which a quantum processor is located , grows rapidly with an increase in the number of qubits due to the ability to connect them to each other. This feature allows quantum devices to solve various computational problems orders of magnitude faster than classical computers and supercomputers.
Rosatom has already become one of the world leaders in a number of areas of quantum computing, Alexei Likhachev said this year. In 2022, under the auspices of Rosatom, a processor with 16 qubits was created, he said. Russia is among the top three countries in the promising technology of the so-called kudits, Likhachev noted. Qudits are extended versions of qubits that can be in multiple states at the same time.
And earlier, Russian specialists, using quantum computing technologies, for the first time in the world, solved an important task for the nuclear industry — how to find the optimal distribution of spent nuclear fuel among containers for subsequent safe storage. Limitations in such a task are economic and environmental factors. In addition, with an increase in the dimension of the problem, that is, the number of spent fuel elements and containers, the number of possible placement options begins to grow rapidly, which greatly complicates the search for the optimal configuration. Therefore, quantum computing turned out to be very useful. .html» data-title=»Chernyshenko spoke about the development of quantum technologies in Russia»>