Quantum Computing: How Close Are We to a Technological Revolution?
1. Introduction
Brief overview of quantum computing.
Importance of quantum computing in the future of technology.
2. Understanding Quantum Computing
Explanation of qubits, superposition, and entanglement.
How quantum computing differs from classical computing.
3. The Current State of Quantum Computing
Advances by major players (Google, IBM, Microsoft).
Examples of quantum computing…
42 BC - Roman Republican Civil Wars: Second Battle of Philippi - Brutus’ army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian; Brutus commits suicide
1915 - An estimated 25,000 supporters in a women’s suffrage march on NY’s 5th Ave, led by Dr Anna Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters
1941 - “Dumbo” released
1958 - The Smurfs 1st appear in the story “Johan and Pirlouit” by Belgium cartoonist Peyo (pictured)
1977 - Discovery of a 3.4 billion year old one celled fossil, one of the earliest life forms on earth
1986 - Artist Keith Haring commissioned to paint a mural on the Berlin Wall by Checkpoint Charlie Museum - 300 meters long
2015 - Adele releases “Hello”; becomes the 1st song with more than a million downloads in its 1st week
2018 - Microplastics found in human stools for 1st time
2019 - Google research lab claims it has achieved Quantum Supremacy performing calculation in 3 minutes that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years
In light of the quantum supremacy announcement by Google, my advisor (J, a number theorist whose work is in cryptography) and his wife (L) are the best the worst in superlative superposition.
Google’s quantum computer was reportedly able to solve a calculation — proving the randomness of numbers produced by a random number generator — in 3 minutes and 20 seconds that would take the world’s fastest traditional supercomputer, Summit, around 10,000 years. This effectively means that the calculation cannot be performed by a traditional computer, making Google the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy.
Jon Porter, Google may have just ushered in an era of ‘quantum supremacy’, The Verge, 23 Sep 2019
Has Google Actually Achieved 'Quantum Supremacy' With Its New Quantum Computer?
“Instead of recording a 0 or 1 permanently as a bit, a qubit is a two-state quantum mechanical system, where the ground state represents 0 and the excited state represents 1. (For example, an electron can be spin up or spin down; a photon can be left-handed or right-handed in its polarization, etc.) When you prepare your system initally, as well as when you read out the final results, you'll see only 0s and 1s for the values of qubits, just like with a classical computer and classical bits.
But unlike a classical computer, when you're actually performing these computational operations, the qubit isn't in a determinate state, but rather lives in a superposition of 0s and 1s: similar to the simultaneously part-dead and part-alive Schrodinger's cat. It's only when the computations are over, and you read out your final results, that you measure what the true end-state is.”
Approximately a week ago, a NASA website began hosting a paper by Google AI Quantum and collaborators entitled, “Quantum supremacy using a programmably superconducting processor,” that claimed to achieve the long-sought-after goal of Quantum Supremacy at last. But what does that mean? What did the Google team actually demonstrate, how did they do it, and what still remains to be done in order to achieve our dream of surpassing the practical limits of classical computers for solving actual, useful problems?
Luckily, I got my hands on a copy of the paper and got to interview some experts in quantum computing to find out the answer. If you want to know the real, scientific truth, dive on in!
Reports suggest a quantum computer has bested standard computers on one type of calculation, but practical applications are still a distant goal.
A leaked paper suggests that Google has achieved a milestone known as quantum supremacy, using a quantum computer to perform a calculation that couldn’t be achieved even with the world’s most powerful supercomputers.
It’s a hotly anticipated goal, and one intended to mark the beginning of a new era of quantum computation (SN: 6/29/17). But it’s also largely symbolic: The calculation in question serves no practical purpose and is designed to be difficult for classical computers, standard computers that are not rooted in quantum physics.
On September 20, the Financial Times reported that a scientific paper, briefly published on a NASA website before being removed, claims that Google has built a quantum computer that achieved quantum supremacy. It’s a benchmark that the company’s quantum researchers, led by physicist John Martinis of the University of California, Santa Barbara, have set their sights on for years (SN: 3/5/18). An apparent plain-text version of the paper, posted anonymously on the site Pastebin, has since been circulating among scientists and on Twitter. A spokesperson for Google declined to comment to Science News.
According to the Pastebin version of the paper, Google created a quantum computer named Sycamore with 54 quantum bits called qubits, 53 of which were functional. The researchers used it to perform a series of operations in 200 seconds that would take a supercomputer about 10,000 years to complete.
The calculation consists of performing random operations on the qubits and reading out the result. After doing this many times, the researchers are left with a nearly random assortment of numbers, one that is extremely difficult to reproduce with a classical computer.
Despite its lack of applications, quantum supremacy has been billed as a major breakthrough in the quest for a quantum computer that could eventually perform useful calculations that are not possible with classical computers. “This dramatic speedup relative to all known classical algorithms provides an experimental realization of quantum supremacy on a computational task and heralds the advent of a much-anticipated computing paradigm,” the text of the Pastebin paper reads.
The machines might eventually be capable of defeating encryption techniques used to secure certain transmissions, such as financial transactions made by computers. But that advance will require many more qubits and a method to correct the errors that inevitably creep into quantum calculations. “While this is a milestone, it is *very* far from being a quantum computer that can compute anything useful,” physicist Jonathan Oppenheim of University College London wrote on Twitter.
Not everyone agrees that quantum supremacy is a useful benchmark. “Quantum computers are not ‘supreme’ against classical computers because of a laboratory experiment designed to essentially (and almost certainly exclusively) implement one very specific quantum sampling procedure with no practical applications,” IBM’s director of research Dario Gil wrote in a statement sent to Science News.
IBM is developing their own line of quantum computers (SN: 11/10/17), and researchers there prefer to talk about “quantum advantage,” which they define as “the point at which quantum applications deliver a significant, practical benefit beyond what classical computers alone are capable.” The new result falls short of that standard.
A hyper-fast quantum computer is the digital equivalent of a nuclear bomb; whoever possesses one will be able to shred any encryption and break any code in existence.
D. Ignatius. The Quantum Spy. W. W. Norton, New York, 2018
D. Ignatius. The Quantum Spy. W. W. Norton, New York, 2018
A typical example of incorrect, largely-spread, myth quoted from a recent mystery novel. - Cristian S. Calude and Elena Calude
