Entering the Quantum Realm

Hank Pym: “If that regulator is compromised, you would go subatomic.”

Scott Lang: “What does that mean?”

Hank Pym: “It means that you would enter a Quantum Realm… a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity.”

(Ant Man and the Wasp, 2018)

The history of computers starts in the late 19^th Century. It hits a milestone in 1931 with the creation of the Differential Analyser — a machine that used electric motors to manipulate gears, pullies and shafts to solve equations with up to 18 variables — another milestone in 1953 with the birth of the first digital computer — which used transistors instead of tubes — and in 1959 with the development of the integrated circuit and a move from geranium to silicone.

And that’s been pretty much it. Once the integrated chip was developed, the history of computers is governed by Moore’s Law.

We’re at a point now when the world’s most powerful chip has 30 billion transistors on it. Imagining the size of an individual transistor on that chip is in comprehensible, let alone anything smaller. The size of an individual transistor is literally approaching the atomic level.

Moore’s Law is about to hit a physical limit where building a faster computer will mean going subatomic.

That’s where quantum comes in. A quantum computer is a computer that works in the subatomic level, where “maths is different”. It has the potential to do in seconds what might take a conventional computer —even a super computer — decades to calculate.

Suppose you had a phone number and didn’t know who it belonged to. Searching the directory with a conventional computer would mean starting with A, then going one number at a time until you get a match. To speed things up, you might add a second computer or a third.

A quantum computer in contrast, searches all numbers in the directory at the same time.

Quantum computers deal it qubits, rather than bits. The race between Microsoft, Google, D-Wave and our own Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) is to build a 10 qubit computer. This would be more powerful than the world’s fastest super computer. A 30 qubit computer would be more powerful than all the computers in the world.

Confused? Me too.

But the potential impacts of the technology are clear. Quantum computing is particular good for problems that involve optimization (think finance, insurance, logistics), machine learning (gene sequencing, resource detection), simulation (pharmaceuticals) and code breaking. A useful barometer of which industries will be most impacted the most, is expenditure/adoption of cloud-computing services.

We’re still a ways off. Qubits are inherently fragile. They’re sensitive to noise and outside interference, and might live only for a matter of seconds. Quantum computers need to operate at temperatures near absolute zero using fridges that have barely been invented. The technologies being developed by Australian of the Year (and my new bestie!) Professor Michelle Simmons involve placing a single atom in a specific location.

Recognising both the potential and the challenges, the US has released their National Strategic Overview for Quantum Information Science. The strategy promises a “science-first approach” and focusses on building a quantum-smart and diverse workforce and providing the requisite infrastructure and support. Complementing the Strategy, the Department of Energy (which oversees the US National Laboratories) announced $218 million in funding for Quantum Information Science and the National Science Foundation announced $31 million awards for fundamental quantum research. Congress is also working on legislation to provide $1.3 billion over the next 10 years to support R&D in quantum computing. The National Quantum Initiative Act has been approved by the House and is under consideration in the Senate.

An important development  (one might even say a quantum leap!) in the US’ approach quantum is the emphasis it places on international collaboration — noticeably absent from the Administration’s report, Artificial Intelligence for American Industry, released back in May.