The dream of “quantum computing” – harnessing the power of quantum-level mechanics in order to create computers far faster and more powerful than any available today – came a step closer to reality recently.
Microsoft and Google both have just announced that they are expecting to reach key milestones in the development of the technology in the near future.
In a world where processing power is often a bottleneck, breaking the quantum barrier is expected to lead to huge benefits for businesses and society at large.
- Quantum computing aims to take advantage of unusual properties that matter exhibits once we begin to study it at a level of detail below atomic level – the sub-atomic, or quantum level.
- While conventional computer use binary “bits” (one and zero) as the process for calculation, a quantum computer uses quantum bits, knows as qubits – which can exist in both states simultaneously, as well as many other states in between.
- Qubits exhibit properties of quantum entanglement – a phenomenon that means pairs, or groups, of particles, cannot be measured or described independently of each other – they are “entangled” and their state depends on that of other particles in the group.
- Due to factors which are still not fully understood despite the best efforts of Einstein, Shrodinger and many others since, it appears that particles linked in this way can transfer information between each other, even though, theoretically, they could be an unlimited distance apart.
- Computer scientists working on quantum computers believe that in the future it will be possible to harness these mechanisms and build computers which will be millions of times more efficient that anything available today.
Quantum Computing 