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Quantum computers teleport and store energy harvested from empty space

A quantum computing protocol makes it possible to extract energy from seemingly empty space, teleport it to a new location, then store it for later use

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

17 September 2024

A quantum computing chip

IBM

Energy cannot be created from nothing, but physicists found a way to do the next best thing: extract energy from seemingly empty space, teleport it elsewhere and store it for later use. The researchers successfully tested their protocol using a quantum computer.

The laws of quantum physics reveal that perfectly empty space cannot exist – even places fully devoid of atoms still contain tiny flickers of quantum fields. In 2008, at Tohoku University in Japan proposed that those flickers, together with the …

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