Quantum hyperchaos could help build better quantum computers

By Leah Crane

VCHAL/Getty Images

Quantum computing can be chaotic, but key properties of that chaos may actually help us develop useful devices. That is the finding of a study of the behaviour of quantum bits, or qubits, which has shown that their chaotic nature may be easier to predict than thought.

Quantum computers use qubits as the basic unit of memory, the same way regular computers use bits. The difference is that while a bit can only be in one of two states – a 1 or a 0 – a qubit can …