Martin Roetteler

Every day, the power grid faces a puzzle: which power plants should be switched on to reliably meet demand without breaking the bank? For 15 generators and 24 hours, the number of possible schedules exceeds 2.3×$$10^{108}$$, more than the number of atoms in the visible universe. No classical supercomputer can sift through all of them, so dispatchers settle for a compromise.

A long string of beads settles into a tiny box — some beads press together, others spread apart. That's the puzzle a protein solves when it folds into a working molecule. Except the beads, amino acids, can number in the hundreds, and every contact between them reshapes the whole structure.

On a quantum computer with 36 ytterbium ions, a model of spacetime was built that fits into a few dozen qubits. The ions are held in a trap and controlled by laser pulses, and their states become entangled so that they form a framework resembling the beams of an invisible building.