Is your business ready for the quantum leap in computing?

Quantum computing is the next emerging technology that will revolutionize the way information is stored and processed, allowing machines to perform calculations at vastly superior speeds.

Hailed as the ‘fifth generation of computers’, quantum machines have been a research topic for almost four decades, since physicist Paul Benihoff first hypothesized that the scientific field of quantum mechanics could theoretically be applied to computer calculations.

Today technology has progressed so much further that companies like IBM, Google and D-Wave have begun to build their very own quantum machines with staggering implications for every industry from speeding up research times for life-saving medicines to breaking military grade encryption.

SBM explores the quantum landscape to decode the science and examine the potential use cases by industry so that your business will be primed to take the next quantum leap in computing.

Quantum 101: How do quantum computers work?

A regular PC performs calculations using a series of ‘bits’ stored as 1’s and 0’s on your machine. Quantum computers instead, use ‘qubits’. These are capable of achieving a state called quantum superposition. Not much makes sense at a quantum level but in simplest terms, a qubit can be both 1 and 0 at the same time. With bits, the number of calculations you can perform is limited by the size of your computers’ hard-disk and RAM. Qubits can process many more permutations, making quantum machines super fast and capable of holding much more complex information.

Information processing is just the beginning. Quantum computers are also much more sophisticated in interpreting results. Whereas classical computers can only produce specifically designed results as defined by algorithms, quantum answers are probabilistic. Superposition and quantum entanglement means that multiple possible answers are considered in a given computation. Each problem is run multiple times to give the spectrum of possible answers to give confidence in the best answer provided.

The future of Quantum Computing

Quantum machines offer great hope for the future. Chemistry simulations which mimic the interactions of molecules require a great deal of processing power. Harnessing qubits will make for much speedier research into vital medications. IBM is currently exploring new ways to research medicines and materials with Zapata Computing.

In the pharmaceutical space, researchers are exploring how quantum computing might be employed to advance drug design to the point of providing personalized prescription drugs for individual patients.

In manufacturing, global supply chains will be taken to a quantum level, as the technology will be used to procure, produce and distribute inventory for large-scale networks.

Qubits can also help to process data when there are a near infinite number of variables, such as predicting trends in the stock market. This can help wealth managers and their clients to make better investment decisions. This is why IBM has been working with JP Morgan Chase on building quantum risk models.

It takes a quantum machine to beat a quantum machine.

Quantum computers also have exciting and terrifying consequences for encryption. Traditionally, the only way for a hacker to break an encryption algorithm is to try every possible password combination. A technique known as ‘brute force’ hacking. Depending on password length, this can take thousands of years. However, as quantum computers can try many different pass phrases at the same time, encrypted information could be laid bare in seconds.

Two weeks before this article was published (March 2020), Google and IBM stated that in less than five years, quantum computers would be able to break the encryption we use today.

In light of this, NIST (The National Institute of Standards & Technology) are currently running a competition to create ‘quantum safe’ security systems. It stands to reason that quantum computers could end up solving the very security problem they’ve caused.

Who will be the first to achieve quantum supremacy?

Quantum computing is an emerging field and there is still significant research and development ahead before it matures into a widespread business tool.

But the quantum ecosystem is growing, with many leading tech giants, startups and even institutions like NASA and MIT investing their knowledge and resources into this exciting new field.

In 2016 IBM created a prototype 5-qubit quantum computer and placed it in the cloud so interested parties could experiment with it. IBM has also created a 50-qubit hardware quantum chip regulated by its very own Q-CTRL program.

At the beginning of 2019, IBM announced IBM Q, its first-ever circuit-based commercial quantum computer.
In the same year, Microsoft released its quantum computing simulator, Microsoft Liqui|>, a software architecture and suite of tools for quantum computing.

Google has also developed The Sycamore, a 54 qubit quantum computer that runs on superconductive loops. This quantum device has already performed calculations several times faster than today’s fastest super computers.

While still an emerging technology, quantum computing has the potential to help solve some of the most complex technical, scientific and commercial problems that organizations face. Talk to us today to discover practical, real-world applications for your business that you can access through the power of quantum computing.