Quantum computing steadily advances, promising to improve batteries, crack encryption, simulate nature's complexity
from Wired’s What Is Quantum Computing?
We try not to fall for tech hype at A/UK - but we do try to keep our eyes open for how radical technological innovation can be put at the service of the everyday citizen and flourishing communities.
Alongside machine learning and AI, one tech that constantly promises to up-end our normal lives is something called quantum computing (which is a little different from our interest in quantum social science). The tech site ZDNet has just done a feature survey on the latest state of play in quantum computers, and they help us out with a definition:
The remarkable properties of quantum computing boil down to the behaviour of qubits -- the quantum equivalent of classical bits that encode information for today's computers in strings of 0s and 1s. But contrary to bits, which can be represented by either 0 or 1, qubits can take on a state that is quantum-specific, in which they exist as 0 and 1 in parallel, or superposition.
Qubits, therefore, enable quantum algorithms to run various calculations at the same time, and at exponential scale: the more qubits, the more variables can be explored, and all in parallel. Some of the largest problems, which would take classical computers tens of thousands of years to explore with single-state bits, could be harnessed by qubits in minutes.
The challenge lies in building quantum computers that contain enough qubits for useful calculations to be carried out. Qubits are temperamental: they are error-prone, hard to control, and always on the verge of falling out of their quantum state. Typically, scientists have to encase quantum computers in extremely cold, large-scale refrigerators, just to make sure that qubits remain stable. That's impractical, to say the least.
This is, in essence, why quantum computing is still in its infancy. Most quantum computers currently work with less than 100 qubits, and tech giants such as IBM and Google are racing to increase that number in order to build a meaningful quantum computer as early as possible. Recently, IBM ambitiously unveiled a roadmap to a million-qubit system, and said that it expects a fault-tolerant quantum computer to be an achievable goal during the next ten years.
What will this unimaginable increase in calculation power actually achieve? ZDNet gives hypotheticals, some of which are encouraging, others pretty depressingly expected:
Electric batteries: To increase the capacity and speed-of-charging of batteries for electric vehicles, Daimler's researchers are working on next-generation lithium-sulfur batteries, which require the alignment of various compounds in the most stable configuration possible.
To find the best placement of molecules, all the possible interactions between the particles that make up the compound's molecules must be simulated.
This task can be carried out by current supercomputers for simple molecules, but a large-scale quantum solution could one day break new ground in developing the more complex compounds that are required for better batteries.
Financial services: One industry that has shown an eager interest in quantum technology is the financial sector. From JP Morgan Chase's partnerships with IBM and Honeywell, to BBVA's use of Zapata's services, banks are actively exploring the potential of qubits, and with good reason.
Quantum computers, by accounting for exponentially high numbers of factors and variables, could generate much better predictions of financial risk and uncertainty, and boost the efficiency of key operations such as investment portfolio optimisation or options pricing.
Oil and gas: ExxonMobil have joined the network of companies that are currently using IBM's cloud-based quantum processors. ExxonMobil started collaborating with IBM in 2019, with the objective of one day using quantum to design new chemicals for low energy processing and carbon capture.
The company's director of corporate strategic research Amy Herhold explains that for the past year, ExxonMotists have been tapping IBM's quantum capabilities to simulate macroscopic material properties such as heat capacity. The team has focused so far on the smallest of molecules, hydrogen gas, and is now working on ways to scale the method up to larger molecules as the hardware evolves.
This Harvard Business Review article from September also identifies areas where QC’s enormous computing power could help sort climate data or health data, design complex chemicals (also here), crack cryptography and create the most uncrackable code.
We bemoan a world in which we are drowning in data, where everything indicates and signifies. Yet this is also a world where we will have to ever more precisely and accurately measure our modern, tech impact on natural systems. So we, the people should keep our eyes on the resources of computation that can help us master the complexities we generate. Quantum computing is one of those to watch.