Scientists develop compression method for quantum information

Scientists have found a method to apply compression to information stored in qubits. The technique could be scaled up exponentially, which means that quantum information must be stored more efficiently.

The compression method was developed by researchers at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, who published their findings in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters. According to the researchers, it is possible to apply compression to quantum information stored in qubits, so that fewer of them are needed to store the same amount of information.

In their experiments, the researchers made qubits using the spin of photons. With this, the scientists showed that three qubits can be compressed into two qubits. They also discovered that their compression method can be scaled exponentially: that means the information stored in 1000 qubits can be reduced to 10 qubits, and the information in a million qubits can be packed into just 20 qubits.

To apply compression, it is necessary to make all qubits of the same quantum particles, in this case photons, that are also prepared in the same way, the researchers said. For the time being, this is an experimental technique: the scientists do not state when their method of quantum compression can be applied in practice.