After building the basic blocks of a quantum computer in silicon and storing quantum information for up to 30 seconds, scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have now violated a principle of classical physics to demo for the first time a pair of entangled, high-fidelity quantum bits (qubits) in silicon. The advance could help unleash the power of a new kind of computation that would affect everything from data cryptography to drug design, overnight deliveries and subatomic particle experiments.

A mathematical relationship known as Bell's inequality places a limit on how strongly two particles can correlate without violating two intuitive principles that govern classical physics – locality, meaning what happens in one place can only be influenced by nearby objects; and realism, meaning physical objects exist whether or not they are observed