It will pave the way for massively scaled-up machines if it all pans out.

Engineers claim this is the world's first transistor capable of functioning efficiently in cryogenic conditions — extremely low temperatures below -238 degrees Fahrenheit (-150 degrees Celsius).

A study detailing this transistor's optimal performance at temperatures of 1 kelvin and lower, close to absolute zero, was uploaded to the preprint database arXiv on 1 October. You can take it with a grain of salt at the moment because the paper has not been peer reviewed.

Quantum computers need to be cooled to near-absolute zero for the qubits that power them to reach a state of "coherence," allowing them to occupy a superposition of 1 and 0, the conventional bits of binary data.

When qubits are entangled — linked over time and space, so they share information — quantum computers can process calculations in parallel, whereas classical computers must process them sequentially.

The scientists said conventional components perform incredibly inefficiently at these sub-freezing temperatures. As more qubits are added to a system, more heat is emitted, making it harder and more expensive to maintain these ultralow temperatures.

According to representatives of the Finnish company SemiQon, which developed the new transistor, it is dubbed the "cryo-CMOS transistor" and is optimised to operate at temperatures under 1 K and emit near-zero heat. Thus, it offers significant advantages over traditional electronics.

SemiQon's CEO and co-founder Himadri Majumdar said: "It was clear to us and others in the scientific community that a transistor which can operate efficiently at ultra-low temperatures would offer substantial value to users in the advanced computing sector and wherever these devices are required to function in cryogenic conditions.”

The transistor cuts heat dissipation by 1,000 times and consumes 0.1 per cent of the power of traditional transistors.

This advancement allows control and readout electronics to be placed directly into the "cryostat" — the gigantic barrel responsible for cooling — for the first time, enabling future machines to be scaled up more cost-effectively and with fewer errors disrupting calculations.

Beyond quantum applications, these transistors could also be used in high-performance computing, such as in the world's fastest supercomputers and in space, company representatives said.