The Download: IBM’s quantum ambitions, and tasting lab-grown burgers
What’s happening: Last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor containing 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years.
Why it matters: The project is part of IBM’s plans to push quantum computing into the realm of full-scale operation, where the technology could potentially tackle pressing problems that no standard supercomputer can solve.
The potential: The idea is that the 100,000 qubits will work alongside the best “classical” supercomputers to achieve new breakthroughs in drug discovery, fertilizer production, battery performance, to name just a few fields. Read the full story.
—Michael Brooks
Here’s what a lab-grown burger tastes like
Eating meat has an undeniable impact on the planet. Animal agriculture makes up nearly 15% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, and beef is a particular offender, with more emissions per gram than basically any other meat.
Intrigued by the promise of lab-grown meat, our climate reporter Casey Crownhart decided to see whether a cultivated Wagyu burger could ever live up to the lofty promises made by alternative meat companies. Find out how she got on.
