There are several ways to access real Quantum computers – often for free – via the Internet. However, most of these are previous generation machines with limited capabilities. Great for learning, perhaps, but not something you can do in practice. Xanadu, however, has announced that it claims to be a computer capable of accessing quantum facilities that can be used for free by anyone within the range. Borealis – the computer in question – uses the photonic state and is capable of working with more than 216 squeezed-state qubits.
The company is selling time on computers, but the free level includes 5 million free shots in Borealis and 10 million shots in previous series of Quantum computers. You can buy pay-as-you-go service in Borealis for around $ 100 per million shots.
While a few million shots may sound like a lot, we’ve noticed that the Quickstart demo takes 10,000 shots and that’s probably something simple. It’s still about 500 runs in Borealis – not bad for free on a sophisticated quantum computer. Although you may want to debug with a simulator.
We assume that the developers are fans of the Beatles because you use software called Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields to access the machines. Your work is controlled by Python and there is a cloud simulator to save your shots.
We will not pretend to understand everything about squeezed light cubits and borealis architecture. But you can find some common practices in our series on Quantum Computing. Or there are a few lectures nearby that aim at different levels of experience.