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beloch • yesterday at 11:44 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Helium-4 is what you get out of the ground with natural gas. Helium-3 is what you get from tritium. A combination of these two is what gives you really low cryogenic temperatures needed for quantum computing.

Canada produces a lot of He-4 from natural gas and a huge proportion of the worlds tritium in its heavy water reactors. Most countries that produce tritium and He-3 tend to hoard it, but Canada is selling it cheap. If the U.S. wants to be forward looking, they should talk to Canada about a long-term tritium and helium supply contract.

Edit: Of course, I would imagine it would be in the interest of other countries to do the same while Canada is placing a premium on non-U.S. partnerships.


Replies

Melatonic • today at 8:30 AM

Exactly - gotta cool those quantum chips to 0K somehow