"Scientists may have...that ability could...early experiments suggest...if verified, it could..."
I have become jaded with publications that hedge like this. In my experience most of these discoveries never pan out, they just disappear. And not being in the field myself, I don't know how to judge.
Does anyone in quantum computing have a read on how big a deal this is (or isn't)?
You should read them as publicity to convince stupid politicians to continue to fund basic research when they are more inclined to go for tax cuts for billionaires. Annoying, but a necessary evil.
The manuscript has been out since October 2025, and back then it didn't make so much noise. Looks like solid work, but more muted in tone than this press release. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08110
The limiting factor for quantum computers is keeping them cold. Is this triple superconductor high temperature too? If not, it's not going to change things much.
I did a bunch of research on similar Tc superconductors back during my
PhD.
7K is considered “warm” from a cryogenics point-of-view because you can just dunk your sample into a dewar of liquid helium at 4.2K. You can even get it cooler, down to about 1K, using evaporative cooling techniques. [1]
It’s getting to lower temperatures than this when things start getting complicated. Eg a closed-cycle evaporative He3 system can get you down to 200 mK, or you can bite the bullet and use a dilution fridge down to around 10mK.
"Scientists may have...that ability could...early experiments suggest...if verified, it could..."
I have become jaded with publications that hedge like this. In my experience most of these discoveries never pan out, they just disappear. And not being in the field myself, I don't know how to judge.
Does anyone in quantum computing have a read on how big a deal this is (or isn't)?
The majority of press releases, from universities, are complete fan fiction. It's so damn disheartening.
You should read them as publicity to convince stupid politicians to continue to fund basic research when they are more inclined to go for tax cuts for billionaires. Annoying, but a necessary evil.
The manuscript has been out since October 2025, and back then it didn't make so much noise. Looks like solid work, but more muted in tone than this press release. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08110
The limiting factor for quantum computers is keeping them cold. Is this triple superconductor high temperature too? If not, it's not going to change things much.
In QC, keeping cold is not just needed to superconduct, but to reduce thermal noise to level below the energy levels operated at.
7k, kelvin that is, according to the fine article. Very very cold, but better than nothing.
I did a bunch of research on similar Tc superconductors back during my PhD.
7K is considered “warm” from a cryogenics point-of-view because you can just dunk your sample into a dewar of liquid helium at 4.2K. You can even get it cooler, down to about 1K, using evaporative cooling techniques. [1]
It’s getting to lower temperatures than this when things start getting complicated. Eg a closed-cycle evaporative He3 system can get you down to 200 mK, or you can bite the bullet and use a dilution fridge down to around 10mK.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-K_pot
Note that liquid Helium boils at 4K, so anything hotter (like 7K) is "easy", where "easy" means "as easy as keeping a NMR working in a Hospital".
(There are probably a lot of other nasty details, but less than 4K is harder.)