Meet ‘Horse Ridge’, Intel’s new chip for commercial quantum computers

Quantum computers aim to carry out tasks in just a few minutes that would take today’s best conventional computers thousands of years. But in nearly every photograph of the devices, there’s a tangle of wires in the background connected to equipment that controls the quantum computer.

Intel Corp on Monday announced a chip that it hopes will change that. The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker announced a chip called “Horse Ridge” that is designed to take all the work being done by the wires and shrink it down to a chip and electronics about the size of a tea cup saucer.

Quantum computers remain years away from everyday use but have drawn the interest of major technology companies.