Today Intel announced a 10-year collaborative relationship with the Delft University of Technology and TNO, the Dutch Organisation for Applied Research, to accelerate advancements in quantum computing.

To achieve this goal, Intel will invest US$50 million and will provide engineering resources both on-site and at Intel, as well as technical support. Quantum computing holds the promise of solving complex problems that are practically insurmountable today, including intricate simulations such as large-scale financial analysis and more effective drug development. Quantum computing is an area of research that Intel has been exploring because it has the potential to augment the capabilities of tomorrow's high performance computers.

"A fully functioning quantum computer is at least a dozen years away, but the practical and theoretical research efforts we're announcing today mark an important milestone in the journey to bring it closer to reality," said Mike Mayberry, Intel vice president and managing director of Intel Labs.

Intel's goal is to extend the university's physics expertise and diverse quantum computing research efforts by contributing advanced manufacturing, electronics and architectural expertise.

"In the next five to 10 years, progress in quantum computing will increasingly require the combination of excellent science with high-level engineering," said lead scientist Lieven Vandersypen from QuTech. "For the realization of complex circuits containing large numbers of quantum bits, the know-how from the semiconductor industry is essential, and QuTech is thrilled to partner with the leading semiconductor company in the world."

Quantum computers use quantum bits (qubits), unlike digital computers, which are based on transistors and require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits). These qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously, offering the potential to compute a large number of calculations in parallel, speeding time to resolution.