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Quantum computers could solve tasks inaccessible to classical computers, if they could work fully. One of the obstacles is the translation of quantum algorithms from abstract mathematical concepts into code understandable to a quantum machine. Specialists from the USA figured out why it is so difficult to make quantum computers execute algorithms and presented a quantum analogue of a virtual computing machine.
While there are many languages for programming on ordinary computers, quantum ones are deprived of such luxury. There are still very few quantum programming languages and they are relatively difficult to use. This, according to MIT News, is because quantum computers do not follow the classical rules of performing steps in a certain order - an important process called control logic.
Experts from the Information and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have described a new conceptual model for quantum computers - a quantum control machine, thanks to which writing software code for quantum computers will become a little easier.
According to the developers, quantum computers do not have to be mysterious devices that only physicists and mathematicians can use.
The control logic of classic computers is simple and based on the binary opposition of zeros and ones, which make up the instructions for the computing architecture. In a quantum computer, the main element is a qubit, a bit of information that exists simultaneously as a zero and a one. A quantum algorithm can perform a superposition of two instructions simultaneously: this is called quantum control logic.
The problem is that the existing types of quantum computers do not have an analogue of the command counter, as in classical computers, which determines which action to perform next. Programmers have to manually place logic gates. It takes a lot of time and is easy to make mistakes. To solve this problem, a quantum control machine was developed - a set of instructions that acts in the same way as a virtual computing machine.
A characteristic feature of a quantum control machine is that it contains reversible instructions, which are necessary for quantum algorithms to process information without randomly disrupting its superposition.
