It seems like something out of a science fiction movie

The future is coming and much faster than we think. Let’s do an exercise of imagination, imagine, for a moment, being able to send information from one point to another without the need for cables, Wi-Fi or traditional signals, more or less like something telepathic, right? Well, that is precisely what scientists have recently achieved at the University of Oxford: teleporting data between two quantum computers. Although it may seem like science fiction or just news, the world

Although, let’s lower the hype a little, the transmission distance of this experiment was less than two meters, but that doesn’t matter, what matters is having achieved this milestone of sharing information without the need for connections.

What is quantum teleportation and how does it work?

Today it’s all about imagining, but imagine that you have two identical white crystal balls in different rooms, and if one of them moves one of them, the other will also move at the same time regardless of the distance. This is what happens with quantum teleportation (it’s not disappearing from one place and appearing in another as many may have imagined) but instead of crystal balls, we are talking about subatomic particles called qubits. These particles (qubits) can be “entangled”, which means that they form such a strong bond that what happens in one is automatically reflected in the other, no matter how far away they are. It’s as if they had an invisible and instant line of communication. Something similar to, as we said, telepathy. This discovery is completely incredible.

While it’s not enough to transport people from one place to another in the blink of an eye, it is enough to share a lot of information in an ultra-secure way.

Why is it important for computers?

Very simple, do you know the term “bits”? They are the smallest units we know in computing, and they can only represent two values, 0 (which means off, false or no signal) and 1 (which means on, true or with signal), and they cannot represent any numbers other than these two mixed together to create codes. Quantum computers, on the other hand, use qubits, which can represent 0 and 1 at the same time, and this happens thanks to quantum superposition that allows them to process information at various super-fast speeds.

But, until now, connecting quantum computers was very complicated because the information deteriorated during transmission. Now this problem has been solved, allowing computers to communicate without losing data, which could lead to the creation of a “quantum Internet”, something that is much faster and safer for everyone.

The Oxford discovery

The news comes because scientists have managed to teleport the information of a qubit between two quantum computers with 86% accuracy, meaning that most of the data arrived intact even if some was lost along the way. To test the effectiveness of the method, they used a special algorithm called Grover’s Algorithm, which allows data to be searched in quantum information databases. The results showed 71% efficiency!!

Although it may seem like a small thing, the progress made by these scientists will be a turning point for future information transmissions. Who knows what the quantum future will bring? What is clear is that it is no longer a concept on paper, but a reality that is also approaching.