Clinical laboratory IT solutions 'could become quantum'

Research into semiconductors could see quantum memory and storage solutions developed for the clinical laboratory IT solutions of the future.

Funding allocated by the US Department of Defense to the University of Pittsburgh aims to support studies into the properties of semiconductors and how these might be applied to the discipline of quantum computing.

The grant is part of the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, which supports science and engineering projects that cover different areas of each field in a single inquiry.

By examining how semiconductors are able to perfectly conduct electricity, the University of Pittsburgh team hopes to satisfy a number of key goals.

Among them are the creation of quantum memory, new ways to transmit quantum information between different storage media and conducting quantum simulations.

Ultimately they hope that quantum computing could lead to the development of supercomputers with processing capacity equivalent to that of all the world's existing IT systems working constantly since the dawn of time.