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Quantum batteries could make quantum computers more efficient

Powering quantum computers with quantum batteries would reduce the energy needed for cooling and enable machines to pack in more qubits

By Alex Wilkins

22 April 2025

Quantum batteries have theoretically exciting properties

da-kuk/Getty Images

Hooking up a quantum computer to a quantum battery could make it much more energy-efficient and enable machines to pack more processing power into the same physical space.

Quantum batteries, like regular batteries, can store energy to provide power, but rather than using electrochemical reactions, they are built from quantum bits, or qubits, that can extract energy from quantum processes, like entanglement. While they have the advantage of charging much faster than regular devices, researchers have struggled to build working examples or find practical uses for them.

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