36C3: Build Your Own Quantum Computer At Home

In any normal situation, if you’d read an article that about building your own quantum computer, a fully understandable and natural reaction would be to call it clickbaity poppycock. But an event like the Chaos Communication Congress is anything but a normal situation, and you never know who will show up and what background they will come from. A case in point: security veteran [Yann Allain] who is in fact building his own quantum computer in his garage.

Starting with an introduction to quantum computing itself, and what makes it so powerful also in the context of security, [Yann] continues to tell about his journey of building a quantum computer on his own. His goal was to build a stable computer he could “easily” create by himself in his garage, which will work at room temperature, using trapped ion technology. After a few iterations, he eventually created a prototype with KiCad that he cut into an empty ceramic chip carrier with a hobbyist CNC router, which will survive when placed in a vacuum chamber. While he is still working on a DIY laser system, he feels confident to be on the right track, and his estimate is that his prototype will achieve 10-15 qubits with a single ion trap, aiming to chain several ion traps later on.

As quantum computing is often depicted as cryptography’s doomsday device, it’s of course of concern that someone might just build one in their garage, but in order to improve future cryptographic systems, it also requires to fully understand — also on a practical level — quantum computing itself. Whether you want to replicate one yourself, at a rough cost of “below 15k Euro so far” is of course a different story, but who knows, maybe [Yann] might become the Josef Prusa of quantum computers one day.

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