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New Silicon Chip-Based Quantum Computer Passes Major Test 

Yesterday, a research group at TU Delft, called QuTech, announced that they’d successfully tested two “spin qubits” on hardware supplied by researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. These qubits involve the interaction of two confined electrons in a silicon chip. Each electron has a property called spin, which sort of turns it into a tiny magnet, with two states: “Up” and “down”. The researchers control the electrons with actual cobalt magnets and microwave pulses. They measure the electron’s spins by watching how nearby electric charges react to the trapped electrons’ movements.