Of course, Quantum Computing is a great feat in the ever-evolving technological landscape. The truth is that there are still intractable computational problems that classical computers cannot solve. On that note, Quantum Computers can help expand what is possible to design into algorithms. Technically, the qubit is the basic quantum unit of information. A quantum superposition can have exponentially more states than a classical superposition.
In an entangled state, the whole system is in a definite state even though the parts are not. By the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of the business case for quantum computing as well as the milestones and breakthroughs in quantum computing over time. Quantum computers, though once large lab experiments, are now commercially available cloud-based computing resources capable of performing calculations that can't be exactly simulated on classical computers.
Enterprises are increasingly investigating how quantum computing may impact their industry. This training will introduce you to quantum computing and its potential business value. Additionally, this training will equip you to answer questions as you begin your quantum computing journey. IBM Quantum® offers many resources for you to start learning about quantum computing, regardless of your role in your organization.
What Problems Could Quantum Computing Help Solve?
Quantum Computing harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve complex mathematical problems. When scientists and engineers encounter tough problems, they typically turn to supercomputers—large classical computers with thousands of central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs). However, while classical supercomputers are very good at solving certain types of problems, they struggle to solve problems with many variables interacting in complicated ways.
There are numerous potential quantum industry applications where the quantum technology could help push past the most common barriers of complexity to address important problems across industries worldwide. Today, a few areas are considered particularly promising for quantum computing applications.
Including:
- Simulation: Utilizing of physical or chemical systems that are already quantum mechanical in nature.
- Optimization: Finding optimal solutions to complex problems, typically cast as minimization problems.
- Analytics: Working on data with a complex structure while using quantum computing to explore new models in machine learning and data science.
Although quantum computing won’t replace conventional computers, it represents a new computing paradigm. A recent report by the IBM® Institute for Business Value, The Quantum Decade, outlines major drivers for this next generation of computing. There are a few aspects that can help in evaluating quantum for your business.
Including:
- Global priorities – As entire industries face greater uncertainty, business models are becoming more sensitive to and dependent on new technologies.
- The future of computing – The integration of quantum computing, AI, and classical computing into hybrid multi-cloud workflows will drive the most significant computing revolution in 60 years.
- The discovery-driven enterprise – Enterprises will evolve from analyzing data to discovering new ways to solve problems.
- Mounting pressure to solve exponential problems – Examples include discovery of new materials, developing drugs to tackle emerging diseases, and re-engineering supply chains for resilience.
- Quantum technology at a tipping point – With hardware and qubits scaling rapidly, it's never been more important for domain experts to participate in algorithm discovery. Circuits will increase in quality, capacity, and variety as new algorithms emerge.
- Quantum ecosystem scaling – Open innovation fosters collaborative learning. Practitioners and scientists must be trained to apply quantum computing to real-world problems, while physicists and engineers can create hardware and software informed by domain-specific expertise.
What makes quantum computing extraordinary is its capacity to solve today’s unsolvable problems, ultimately delivering business value. Quantum computing can explore these problems because it is based on quantum mechanics, which is the deepest explanation of reality available. Quantum computing exploits quantum mechanical phenomena to process information.
Quantum Computing Vs Conventional Computing
While some may consider quantum computing an innovative area at the beginning of its life cycle, the reality is that the theory underlying quantum computing has been evolving since at least the 1970s. There are several concepts distinct to quantum computing that will help you understand its potential applications to your organization or industry. All computing systems rely on a fundamental ability to store and manipulate information. Conventional computers store information in bits (zeros and ones), and quantum computers use qubits (pronounced CUE–bits).
Quantum computers take advantage of the laws of quantum mechanics found in nature. They represent a fundamental change from conventional information processing. Here is a metaphor to help you understand why quantum computing is very different from conventional computing. Consider the art and technique of photography before and after the advent of color film. For example, consider this black-and-white photograph of a field of tulips and this color photograph of red tulips and a yellow tulip in a field.
The physical phenomena of color existed while photography was limited to grayscale. But posing the question, “Could you swap the reds and yellows?” would have been totally meaningless, as would any attempt to do so. Once color film was invented, there was an explosion of artistic and technical options available to photographers, now that they could manipulate the physics of color.
Quantum computers exist now because we have recently figured out how to control what has been in the world this whole time: the quantum phenomena of superposition, entanglement, and interference. These new ingredients in computing expand what is possible to design into algorithms. Quantum computers offer us new ways of seeing problems, which can reveal solutions that would be invisible to classical computers.
Just as pre-color film photography was renamed “black-and-white photography” after the advent of color film, pre-quantum computing came to need a new name. The most common term for pre-quantum computing is classical computing. The words “classical” and “quantum” came to modify the word “computing” because this is how scientists already modified the word “physics,” as in “classical physics” and “quantum physics.”
Quantum Computing Vs Classical Computing
Today’s computers perform calculations and process information using the classical model of computation, which dates back to the work of Alan Turing and John von Neumann. In this model, all information is reducible to bits, which can take the values of either 0 or 1, and all processing can be performed via simple logic gates (AND, OR, NOT, NAND) acting on one or two bits at a time. At any point in the computation, a classical computer’s state is entirely determined by the states of all its bits, so that a computer with n bits can exist in one of 2n2n possible states, ranging from 00...0 (the sequence of n zeros) to 11...1 (the sequence of n ones).
The power of the quantum model of computation, meanwhile, lies in its much richer repertoire of states. A quantum computer also has bits, but instead of 0 and 1, its quantum bits, or qubits, can represent a 0, a 1, or a combination of both, which is a property known as superposition. This on its own is no special thing, since a computer whose bits can be intermediate between 0 and 1 is just an analog computer, scarcely more powerful than an ordinary digital computer. However, a quantum computer takes advantage of a special kind of superposition that allows for exponentially many logical states at once. This is a powerful feat, and no classical computer can achieve it.
The vast majority of these quantum superpositions, and the ones most useful for quantum computation, are entangled—they are states of the whole computer that do not correspond to any assignment of digital or analog states of the individual qubits. One might think that the difficulty in understanding quantum computing lies in hard math, but mathematically, quantum concepts are only a little more complex than high school algebra. Quantum physics is hard because it requires internalizing ideas that are simple but counterintuitive.
The IBM® Quantum Computing Technology
Quantum superposition is more powerful than classical probabilism but weaker than exponential parallelism. The fleet of IBM® Quantum Computers, all with at least 127 qubits, is the largest in the world. These quantum computers use superconducting transmon qubits, which are not the only kind of qubit, but which have many advantages. Combining our world-class quantum computers with Qiskit enables our users to explore how quantum computing can be useful in the world today. Industry partners and researchers are using IBM Quantum® technology to explore meaningful computations and realistic applications. You can explore the breadth of IBM Quantum programs and services offered to its partners.
Uniquely, the IBM Quantum Platform provides a suite of quantum computing tools that bring together all of the research and development resources that users need to do great work, in one place. Users can create an account and sign in to get access to IBM quantum computers, view computer details, track workloads, and access enablement material in documentation and learning.
Features:
- Homepage: It serves as the primary starting point for the product ecosystem, where users can get their API keys, view a summary of their instances and usage information, view recent job details, and access helpful links to other places across platform.
- Documentation: It aggregates Qiskit documentation, service documentation, and API reference information into one location, organized in a way that supports users' natural workflows.
- Learning: It is the home for educational material including courses and teaching modules, and the interactive Circuit Composer (coming soon). This combination graphical and code editor allows users to prototype, simulate, and debug circuits visually, and then run them on IBM quantum computers.
IBM quantum processors use a physical type of qubit called a superconducting transmon qubit, which is made from superconducting materials patterned on a silicon substrate. Other quantum processors might use photonic qubits, which are made from single photons of light, or trapped-ion qubits, which store information in charged atomic particles. To facilitate the flow of electrical current, superconducting qubits need to be maintained at extremely low temperatures—close to absolute zero.
The Futuristic Quantum Computing Technology Space
Today’s quantum computers, and those expected for the foreseeable future, are noisy. This means they are sensitive to environmental disturbances that can impact the fidelity of results. In much the same way that classical computing evolved through the modular scaling of processors, efficient computation, and parallelization, we see quantum computing evolving to realize its full potential. As we work toward fully fault-tolerant quantum computers, we want to solve useful problems with the hardware and software we possess today.
Today’s quantum computers are not fault-tolerant. Quantum Volume is a holistic measure of how good a quantum computer is. The higher the Quantum Volume, the better. Talking only about qubit count is misleading. To measure the performance of quantum computers, there are four key metrics: scale, quality, speed, and layer fidelity. Quantum-centric supercomputing means treating quantum as one piece of a broader HPC paradigm with classical and quantum working as one computational unit.
Key Takeaways:
Quantum Computing represents a new computing paradigm that can work in unison with conventional computers. It will enable us to understand our world differently and solve some previously intractable problems. While quantum computing cannot yet outperform methods in use today, organizations can take steps today to prepare for this fundamental change in computing.
Quantum physics contains some counterintuitive ideas. This includes a physical system in a definite state that can still behave randomly, two systems that are too far apart to influence each other are somehow strongly correlated, and it is possible to have a state in a quantum system that cannot be described as the product of the independent components of the qubits that make up the state.
Learn More: How To Become A Quantum Ready Innovator
It’s not easy to predict when exactly quantum computing will be able to outperform methods in use today. Yet, to lead in the rapidly approaching age of quantum computing and address complex problems, businesses and research organizations need to start preparing now. Due to the steep learning curve, an early start on learning and experimentation can prove a competitive advantage.
Quantum computing readiness is a continuously evolving state that depends on an organization’s approach to and investment in innovation, as well as new talent and skills, and overall digital maturity. Readiness includes adoption of enabling technologies such as automation, AI, and hybrid multi-cloud; willingness to analyze, experiment, and iterate with expanding computing capabilities; the sophistication of workflows; and organizational skill set.