WHAT IS QUANTUM COMPUTER

What is Quantum Computing?

Quantum computing began in the early 1980s when physicist Paul Benioff proposed a quantum mechanical model of the Turing Machine. Richard Feynman and Yuri Manin later suggested that a quantum computer had the potential to simulate things a Classical Computer could not possibly do. In 1994, Peter Shor developed a quantum algorithm for factoring integers with the potential to decrypt RSA-encrypted communications. Despite ongoing experimental progress since the late 1990s, most researchers believe that “Fault-tolerant quantum computing is still a rather distant dream.” In recent years, investment in quantum computing research has increased in the public and private sectors. On 23 October 2019, Google AI, in partnership with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), claimed to have performed a quantum computation that was infeasible on any Classical computer.

Timeline 1
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            In 2019, U.S. tech giant Google developed a 53-qubit programmable superconducting processor, named “Sycamore,” and claimed “quantum supremacy” – the point at which a quantum computer has outperformed any classical computer in the world. The 62-qubit Zu Chongzhi processor showed that China is at the same level as its U.S. counterparts in the field of superconducting quantum computing, In December 2020, Pan’s team established a quantum computer prototype named Jiuzhang,  which the team said can process information 10 billion times faster than the 53-qubit quantum computer developed by Google.

Recently IBM made its aspirations more concrete by publicly announcing the roadmap for the development of its quantum computers, including the ambitious goal of building one containing 1000 qubits by 2023. In September 2020, IBM also revealed its largest quantum computer that contains 65 qubits. The plan includes building intermediate-size machines of 127 and 433 qubits in 2021 and 2022, respectively. IBM plans to follow it up with a million-qubit machine in future. IBM’s director of research, Dario Gil is confident his team can meet the schedule. “A roadmap is more than a plan and a PowerPoint presentation,” he says. “It’s execution.”

 

Timeline 2
Fig 2

Recently IBM made its aspirations more concrete by publicly announcing the roadmap for the development of its quantum computers, including the ambitious goal of building one containing 1000 qubits by 2023. In September 2020, IBM also revealed its largest quantum computer that contains 65 qubits. The plan includes building intermediate-size machines of 127 and 433 qubits in 2021 and 2022, respectively. IBM plans to follow it up with a million-qubit machine in future. IBM’s director of research, Dario Gil is confident his team can meet the schedule. “A roadmap is more than a plan and a PowerPoint presentation,” he says. “It’s execution.”

IBM is not the only company with a roadmap to build a full-fledged quantum computer—a machine that would take advantage of the strange rules of quantum mechanics to breeze through certain computations that would not be practically possible with conventional computers. At least in terms of public relations, IBM has been playing catch-up to Google, which 1 year ago grabbed headlines when the company announced its researchers had used their 53-qubit quantum computer to solve a particular abstract problem that they claimed would overwhelm any conventional computer—reaching a milestone known as Quantum Supremacy. Google has its own plan to build a million-qubit quantum computer within 10 years. Hartmut Neven, who leads Google’s quantum computing effort, explained in an April 2021 interview, although he declined to reveal specific timelines for the advances.

Timeline 3
Fig 3

 In May 2021, Chinese researchers made a new breakthrough in quantum computing technology. A group of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) have designed and fabricated a programmable superconducting quantum computer prototype with the largest number of functional qubits in the world – 62, and achieved two-dimensional programmable quantum walks on the system.

                          A quantum computer is not just a more powerful version of our current computers, just like a light bulb is not a more powerful candle. You cannot build a light bulb by building better and better candles. A lightbulb is a different technology based on deeper scientific understanding. Similarly, quantum physics describes the behaviour of atoms and fundamental particles like electrons and photons. So, a quantum computer operates by controlling the behavior of these particles, but in a way that is completely different from our conventional computers. Similarly, a quantum computer is a new kind of device based on the science of quantum physics. And just like a lightbulb transform society, quantum computers have the potential to impact so many aspects of our lives, including security, our healthcare and even the internet.

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