We provide a physical prescription based on interferometry for introducing the total phase of a mixed state undergoing unitary evolution, which has been an elusive concept in the past. We define the parallel transport condition that provides a connection form for obtaining the geometric phase for mixed states. The expression for the geometric phase for mixed state reduces to well known formulas in the pure state case when a system undergoes noncyclic and unitary quantum evolution.

We develop a non-adiabatic generalization of holonomic quantum computation in which high-speed universal quantum gates can be realized using non-Abelian geometric phases. We show how a set of non-adiabatic holonomic one-and two-qubit gates can be implemented by utilizing optical transitions in a generic three-level configuration. Our scheme opens up the possibility of realizing universal holonomic quantum computation on qubits characterized by short coherence time.

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