Commercial production of quantum computers that would process information much faster than today's supercomputers is still some time away -- the industry has to first solve hardware issues in quantum technology, according to an expert.
Commercial production of quantum computers that would process information much faster than today’s supercomputers is still some time away - the industry has to first solve hardware issues in quantum technology, according to an expert. Quantum theory is about nature at its smallest scale and energy levels and describes the behavior of subatomic particles like electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons. In silicon chips of classical computers, the unit of data is rendered in one of two states - 0 or 1 pertaining to true/false or yes/no state. However, in quantum theory, data could simultaneously exist in both states, holding exponentially more information. The unit, or “bit” in regular computing, becomes “qubit” in quantum theory, which can be either 0 or 1 or in a superposition of them both at the same time. This means that where a normal computer makes calculations sequentially, one at a time, a quantum computer would be able to process information simultaneously, thus making it much more powerful. The computing power of a quantum computer grows exponentially with the number of quantum bits that can be manipulated, explains Alexey Kavokin of the Russian Quantum Centre (RQC) and Professor at the University of Southampton in the UK. However, while the manipulation of multi particle entanglement is at the core of quantum computing, the physical implementation of qubits is difficult simply because quantum phenomena are hard to observe in everyday life, Kavokin told IANS on the sidelines of the recently concluded global conference on quantum technologies organized by RQC. Read more...
Commercial production of quantum computers that would process information much faster than today’s supercomputers is still some time away - the industry has to first solve hardware issues in quantum technology, according to an expert. Quantum theory is about nature at its smallest scale and energy levels and describes the behavior of subatomic particles like electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons. In silicon chips of classical computers, the unit of data is rendered in one of two states - 0 or 1 pertaining to true/false or yes/no state. However, in quantum theory, data could simultaneously exist in both states, holding exponentially more information. The unit, or “bit” in regular computing, becomes “qubit” in quantum theory, which can be either 0 or 1 or in a superposition of them both at the same time. This means that where a normal computer makes calculations sequentially, one at a time, a quantum computer would be able to process information simultaneously, thus making it much more powerful. The computing power of a quantum computer grows exponentially with the number of quantum bits that can be manipulated, explains Alexey Kavokin of the Russian Quantum Centre (RQC) and Professor at the University of Southampton in the UK. However, while the manipulation of multi particle entanglement is at the core of quantum computing, the physical implementation of qubits is difficult simply because quantum phenomena are hard to observe in everyday life, Kavokin told IANS on the sidelines of the recently concluded global conference on quantum technologies organized by RQC. Read more...