The molecule, IBM said, has seven nuclear "spins" -- the nuclei of five fluorine and two carbon atoms -- which can interact with each other as quantum bits or "qubits." Qubits are atoms that work together as both computer processor and memory.

IBM said its molecule can be programmed by radio frequency pulses and can be detected by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instruments, similar to those used in hospitals and chemistry labs.

"This result reinforces the growing realization that quantum computers may someday be able to solve problems that are so complex that even the most powerful supercomputers working for millions of years can't calculate the answers," said IBM researcher Nabil Amer.

Finding Factors

The team of IBM scientists, together with graduate students from Stanford University, describe in the latest issue of the science journal Nature how they used Shor's Algorithm to demonstrate their find.

The algorithm, developed in 1994 by AT&T scientist Peter Shor, is the seminal event that sparked intense interest in quantum computing and its cryptographic possibilities and kicked off million-dollar research efforts at major institutions.

The algorithm involves the use of quantum computing to find a given number's "factors" -- smaller numbers that are multiplied together to get the original number. Factoring large numbers is difficult for today's conventional computers, and is used by many cryptographers to protect data .

'Unprecedented Control'

The scientists converted a billion-billion of these custom-designed molecules in a test tube to create a seven-qubit quantum computer.

They executed the "simplest meaningful instance" of Shor's Algorithm, and the computer correctly identified three and five as factors of 15.

"Although the answer may appear to be trivial, the unprecedented control required over the seven 'spins' during the calculation made this the most complex quantum computation performed to date," Amer said.

Seven: Lucky Number

Michael Ross, IBM spokesman at the company's Almaden Research Center, where the work took place, told NewsFactor that it took the team nine months to come up with the correct combination for the molecule.

"It's pretty complicated to make the molecule, because what you need are seven 'spins' that are separate in their resonance, so that you have a signal from each one," Ross said.

"They have to be individually accessible, and yet be able to still interact with each other." (continued...)

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