Q&A: Why is there so much hype about the quantum computer?

“The urgency today is not to deploy quantum-resistant cryptography this year or next year,” Jeanjean said. Tuesday’s announcement provides clarity to institutions that are trying to stay ahead of quantum computing’s threat to data security. Quantum computers work thanks to the quirky behavior of particles like photons and electrons. Although they are often discussed and thought of as vanishingly small ping pong or billiard balls, these particles also have properties of waves. A discussion of trends in innovation management within financial institutions, and the key processes, technology and cultural shifts driving innovation. But I think that when we start using quantum technology, we will stop focusing on the underlying quantum phenomena.

It is a Lewis Carroll-like place where ghostly particles pop in and out of existence, swirling electrons occupy two positions at once, and objects possess dual natures — they can be both waves and particles simultaneously. But startup difficulties wouldn’t cause a quantum winter, Quantinuum Chief Operating Officer Tony Uttley believes. Two scenarios that could trigger a winter, though, are if a big quantum computing company stopped its investments or if progress across the industry stalled, he said. Keeping up with technology roadmaps is critical for startups, said Duncan Stewart of the Business Development Bank of Canada, which has invested in quantum computing startups. One of them, Nord Quantique in Quebec, “will live or die based on whether they meet their technical milestones 18 months from now,” he said.

Among others, Honeywell Quantum Solutions merged with Cambridge Quantum to form Quantinuum in 2021; Pasqal merged with Qu&Co in 2022; and ColdQuanta — newly renamed Infleqtion — acquired Super.tech. Explore our digital archive back to 1845, including articles by more than 150 Nobel Prize winners. After I read Q Is for Quantum, Rudolph patiently answered my questions about it. You can find our exchange (which assumes familiarity with the book) here. He also answered my questions about PsiQuantum, the firm he co-founded in 2016, which until recently has avoided publicity. Although he is wittily modest about his talents as a physicist (which adds to the charm of Q Is for Quantum), Rudolph is boosterish about PsiQuantum.

Types of quantum computers

When scientists and engineers encounter difficult problems, they turn to supercomputers. These are very large classical computers, often with thousands of classical CPU and GPU cores. However, even supercomputers struggle to solve certain kinds of problems. If you’d like to learn more about the amazing science behind our quantum computers, check out the publications and Advantage page. If you’re ready to get started, sign up for the Leap quantum cloud service. D-Wave systems use a process called quantum annealing to search for solutions to a problem.

They further define that software and firmware signing should begin transitioning immediately. With the emergence of any new, potentially groundbreaking technology, there’s always an accompanying level of public excitement on what it’ll bring from the get-go. For certain use cases, such as encryption/decryption and quantum ML, that hype is proving true, but only within the realms of particular contexts, according to Healy.

Quantum-centric supercomputing: The next wave of computing

Tossing 2 coins offers 4 different combinations of heads and tails (HH, HT, TH, and TT) but tossing 3 coins allows for 8 distinct combinations (HHH, HHT, HTT, HTH, THT, THH, TTH, and TTT). Quantum computers will be able to tackle certain types of problems — especially those involving a daunting number of variables and potential outcomes, like simulations or optimization questions — much faster than any classical computer. This is a strange way to think, but it is one of the correct ways to interpret how the qubits behave in the real world. Similarly, if you set all three qubits to both 0 and 1, you’d be creating 8 parallel worlds — 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. With a regular computer, using 3 bits, we were able to represent only one of these solutions at a time — for example, 001. To solve this problem with a regular, non-quantum computer, you’ll need first to figure out how to store the relevant information with bits.

Sign up to Nature Briefing

The initial loading of the atoms into the optical tweezers is random, and the researchers must move the atoms around to arrange them into their target geometries. The researchers use a second set of moving optical tweezers to drag the atoms to their desired locations, eliminating the initial randomness. Lasers give the researchers complete control over the positioning of the atomic qubits and their coherent quantum manipulation.

About Nature Portfolio

The ability of a quantum computer to surpass the fastest conventional machine is known as “quantum supremacy,” a phrase coined by physicist John Preskill in 2012. Even in conventional computing, proving that your algorithm beats mine isn’t straightforward. You must pick a task that represents a fair test and choose valid methods of measuring speed and accuracy. The outcomes of tests are also prone to misinterpretation and confirmation bias. “What’s new,” Aaronson wrote, “is that millions of dollars are now potentially available to quantum computing researchers, along with equity, stock options, and whatever else causes ‘ka-ching’ sound effects and bulging eyes with dollar signs.

Quantum Simulator Could Shed Light on a Host of Complex Processes

The laboratory offers several different projects to work on, all with real-world applications. Quantum theory is a revolutionary advancement in physics and chemistry
that emerged in the early twentieth century. It is an elegant
mathematical theory able to explain the counterintuitive behavior of
subatomic particles, most notably the phenomenon of entanglement. In
the late twentieth century it was discovered that quantum theory applies
not only to atoms and molecules, but to bits and logic operations in a
computer. This realization has brought about a revolution in the
science and technology of information processing, making possible kinds
of computing and communication hitherto unknown in the Information Age.

What is quantum computing?

One is more stable, the second has a higher fidelity, and others are more easily mass-produced. Under the right circumstances, the increase in qubits means the system can store and process exponentially more information than the classical bits on which standard computers run. Universal quantum computers can be used to solve a wide range of problems.

His start-up company, Universal Quantum in Haywards Heath, UK, is now working with engineering firm Rolls-Royce in London and others to begin the long and arduous process of building it. “I’m not trying to take away from how much work there is to do, but we’re surprising ourselves about how much we’ve done,” says Jeannette Garcia, senior research manager for quantum applications and software at technology giant IBM in San Jose, California. Some properties of quantum computers can be imitated with sound trapped in a simple mechanical device.

Companies are already rapidly reducing the cost and resources needed to sequence the human genome; but a powerful quantum computer could sift through this data much more quickly, making genome sequencing more efficient and easier to scale. Though quantum annealers are good at optimization problems, they cannot be programmed to solve any type of calculation — unlike universal quantum computers. Optimization problems are notoriously difficult for classical computers to solve due to the overwhelming number of variables and possible combinations involved. Quantum computers, however, are well suited to this type of task as different options can be sifted through at the same time. D-Wave offers a commercially available quantum annealer that uses the properties of qubits to find the lowest energy state of a system, which corresponds to the optimal solution for a specific problem that has been mapped against this system. For years, researchers have been designing algorithms that are only possible on a universal quantum computer.