Quantum computers, should they be realized one day, will inevitably make errors. Therefore, they need special error correcting mechanisms. The most important part of it, a so-called Toffoli gate, has now been realized by ETH scientists with superconducting circuits

This year’s Marcel Benoist Prize has gone to Michele Parrinello, a professor at ETH Zurich and Università della Svizzera italiana and former director of CSCS. Federal Councillor Didier Burkhalter presented Switzerland’s most important science award to him for his computer-aided modelling in the field of molecular dynamics.

High-performance computing centres use a great deal of electricity. In order to run its new computer centre in Lugano-Cornaredo as energy-efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, CSCS is using the natural resource of Lake Lugano to cool its supercomputers and the new building.