New kind of quantum computer made using high-resolution microscope

A new kind of quantum computer uses a high-resolution microscope to control titanium atoms sitting on a surface. The spins of the atoms’ electrons act as quantum bits (qubits), which are key to performing quantum computations. Researchers used microwave signals from a scanning tunnelling microscope to perform a simple two-qubit operation, which took just nanoseconds — faster than is possible with most other types of qubit. But the approach is unlikely to compete with the leading technologies, which are already being scaled up to hundreds of qubits.