The Spanish engineer who leads the creation of the first quantum computer | Technology

The Spanish engineer who leads the creation of the first quantum computer | Technology



At the beginning of the 90s, Darío Gil went to study the last year of high school at Los Altos High School, next to Palo Alto, in California. And he did not come back.

In the United States, he graduated in electrical engineering and did his doctorate in nanostructures at MIT. After finishing his studies, in 2003, he entered IBM. Until today, with 43 years and only since January, he directs the IBM Research division, with 3,000 scientists in his charge.

Gil was named leader of the company's quantum division in 2017. Last January, IBM presented in Las Vegas the first commercial quantum computer. Quantum computing is one of the great bets for the future of IBM. But its success is a mystery: "It has risk, but from the theoretical point of view we are in an extremely solid foundation," says Gil, in the first interview after his appointment as director of IBM Research, held in the framework of Think2019 in San Francisco.

The heart of a quantum computer is one of the coldest places in the universe

A quantum computer is a feat of engineering. Your heart is one of the coldest places in the universe. The outer space is at 2.73 degrees Kelvin, the interior of a quantum computer works without errors only at 0.01 degrees Kelvin, which is -273 degrees Celsius.

"If you look at that cathedral in Barcelona [la Sagrada Familia] put upside down, It does not matter", says Bob Sutor, vice president of the IBM Quantum Department.

That feat is now connected in the cloud and more than a hundred thousand people have done millions of experiments to familiarize yourself With a huge caveat: that quantum computer today does not do anything that does not already a personal computer.

When will it happen that a quantum computer Do something that no other supercomputer can do? Probably in the next decade. In IBM they call that moment "quantum advantage". For Gil, a discrete academic improvement, a calculation, but a real development that "has scientific value" will not suffice.

The exaggerations about the development and possibilities of quantum technology have not helped serenity.

There is competition

IBM is obviously not the only company that has a quantum department. There are a couple of start-ups that have something similar, but still not working. One of them, Rigetti, is owned by a former IBM employee. Microsoft does not have hardware at the moment. Google promises that it will show results, but at the moment nothing: "Our devices are there, you go to the web and you see them." To all the people who talk so much, I would say: "Can you show it to me? How does it work?" Says Gil. reference to competitors. It is likely that quantum technology, like other technological careers, is one where companies take over to be the first. In China, for example, it is an official bet but with results that for now are a mystery.

"The idea of ​​developing materials computationally is a dream since they were invented
The computers"

To understand the scope of quantum computing, Gil uses this comparison. A few decades ago, the operation of nuclear weapons was proven in remote archipelagos in the Pacific. It stopped being done because computers were created capable of modeling those tests without the real explosion. The quantum computer will be capable of the same, but in another order of magnitude. The creation of new materials in humanity has been made to this day by trial error, since the Bronze Age.

A quantum computer will be able to calculate exponentially better and thus allow us to model materials in a way that is unthinkable until now: "Now if there are 50 electrons in a molecule that you want to design, the number of calculations that you should do with a conventional computer is of the order of 2 raised to 50. Imagine you have more than 100 electrons (caffeine has more than 70) It's impossible, you need to use all the atoms on the planet, "says Gil. In the quantum world, no. "The idea of ​​developing materials computationally is a dream since computers were invented," he adds. The result: eternal batteries, perfect fertilizers. Everything created by computer, not in the laboratory. The creation of materials is just one of the quantum applications. Will we see it? There are decades left.

How a Spanish arrives up here

What does a Spaniard do at one of the peaks of global corporate research? Gil was born in Murcia because his family is from Murcia, but he grew up in Madrid, where he has his three brothers and comes back often. His brothers studied a year in the United States, but they all returned and today they are lawyers and businessmen in Spain. The engineering did not come to Gil by family tradition. Darío was the only one in the family to follow in the United States: "I was left without more planning." His marriage to an American from Portland (Maine) helped.

Would that career have been possible in Spain? "In Spain we do not have a culture of research," says Gil. "I would like that in Spain, having a research capacity of the first order should not be seen as something accessory, the difference is that if you ask [la presidenta ejecutiva de IBM] Ginny Rometty for the importance of IBM Research, will tell you that it is fundamental, permanent. But also if you ask in the State of Massachusetts, what is the importance of the research ?, they will tell you a lot. The same in the Pentagon or in the federal government. "

"We have benefited as consumers of research that has happened in other countries, but it is not part of the DNA of our institutions [españolas]"

And if you ask in the Government of Castilla La Mancha? "The problem is that we have not lived the benefit cycle," says Gil. "We have benefited as consumers of research that has happened in other countries, but it is not part of the DNA of our institutions, it is almost like charity, we have people with such talent in Spain, it is a modern and rich country, which can allow. "

Respect for research in the US does not work in Spain due to several factors: "The challenge is cultural and leadership, we must have absolute elite institutions and not a decal from previous ones, take the best and give them resources. in which one is inhibited and begins to set limits: I can only give you these resources, you have to do so, the report must be written in this way, you start to pigeonhole, but it is not magic or a mystery. and they explain it to you, but then you arrive in Spain and they say 'this is not possible because it violates seven rules we have.' Or, for example, 'we are not going to pay scientists more than managers.' ? "

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