THE QUANTUM LEAP

Quantum computing will transform our worldand create a 21st century "space race"

-  CHARLIE CAMPBELL

ONE OF THE SECRETS TO BUILDING THE WORLD’S most powerful computer is probably perched by your bathroom sink.

At IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York State’s Westchester County, scientists always keep a box of dental floss—Reach is the preferred brand—close by in case they need to tinker with their oil-drum-size quantum computers, the latest of which can complete certain tasks millions of times as fast as your laptop.

Inside the shimmering aluminum canister of IBM’s System One, which sits shielded by the same kind of protective glass as the Mona Lisa, are three cylinders of diminishing circumference, rather like a set of Russian dolls. Together, these encase a chandelier of looping silver wires that cascade through chunky gold plates to a quantum chip in the base. To work properly, this chip requires super cooling to 0.015 kelvins—a smidgen above absolute zero and colder than outer space. Most materials contract or grow brittle and snap under such intense chill. But ordinary dental floss, it turns out, maintains its integrity remarkably well if you need to secure wayward wires.

“But only the unwaxed, unflavored kind,” says Jay Gambetta, IBM’s vice president of quantum. “Otherwise, released vapors mess everything up.”