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I'm picturing the control equipment on the inside of an ISS wall with the part that needs being cold being on the outer side.

I imagine this has been considered and if so, was the idea rejected for some particular reason?

Note: It this is off topic please let me know and I'll delete it and post it on a hardware forum.

Ruminator
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    Off the top of my head: 1. Sending and assembling a quantum computer in space and building the architecture for remotely controlling it would involve significant costs, at least currently (probably far more than building a dilution refrigerator). 2. Way too much space radiation; that'd heavily affect the performance (cf. decoherence). – Sanchayan Dutta Nov 29 '19 at 20:31
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    Quick check: what is the temperature of space surrounding the earth? – Mithrandir24601 Nov 30 '19 at 21:58
  • It may need to be supplemented. – Ruminator Nov 30 '19 at 22:22
  • These days cryogenics is a push-button technology. It is the least of the worries for scalability. – Ofer Naaman Dec 01 '19 at 06:47
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    @Ruminator It's really about convenience and being economical. If you have to take your quantum computer to space and again have to supplement it with a cooling device that works in the milli-Kelvin range, then you might as well build the dilution refrigerator on the surface of the earth. It's cheaper. – Sanchayan Dutta Dec 01 '19 at 06:51

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Space-based cryogenic cost must become cheaper than Earth-based cryogenic cost and cheaper than classical computation emulating quantum computation. Earth application IO datalink and general space operations cost must fall as well. Mass space colonization will help.

wave
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    However, you have costs for moving a computer from Earth's surface to the orbit. Moreover, as pointed above, there is an issue with cosmic radiation, so you need to build shield which raise cost again and still you need to cool the computer (temperature in space is around 2 - 3 K while you need temp. 15 mk for IBM Q, for example). – Martin Vesely Dec 01 '19 at 07:26