How Quantum Computing Could Propel Us Light Years Into The Future

How Quantum Computing Could Propel Us Light Years Into The Future

By Rudeon Snell, Global Senior Director: Industries and Customer Advisory at SAP

Does quantum computing hold the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe? To defeating climate change, helping humanity explore the stars or even preventing the next global pandemic? Could it help us accelerate the discovery of new drugs that combats incurable diseases, or help discover new materials, new ways of encryption or new weather prediction models? Perhaps it could help Wall Street simulate more accurate economic forecasts, optimise global portfolios and produce complex, in depth risk analysis.

Or is it destined to always be the technology of the future, never the present, similar to the promise of nuclear fusion?

The obscure and sometimes magical-sounding world of quantum computing is considered by some to be the most important computing technology of the century.

Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft, plus a host of smaller companies, such as D-Wave and Rigetti, are in a race to develop a commercially viable quantum computer. China has also invested vast amounts of resources into developing their own quantum computing capabilities, with Origin Quantum pushing hard to catch up with leading global players in the field.

But what are quantum computers? How could they benefit humanity? And what realworld applications could we expect from this next-generation technology?

Crash course in quantum computing

The computers we use today use bits, which are like tiny little switches that can either block or open the way for information to come through, essentially a binary structure of on and off. All data is made up of these bits, which are represented by ones and zeroes. And every photo, website, app and computer game is essentially made up of these ones and zeroes.

However, as our knowledge of physics has expanded, scientists have discovered that 'on' or 'off' isn't really how the universe works. In the natural world, most things are in a state of uncertainty, especially as you go down to a really small scale. Our present computers are not well equipped to deal with this level of uncertainty.

In contrast, quantum computers are designed to handle this uncertainty. It uses qubits, which can be 'on' or 'off', or both at the same time.

Qubits allow computers to consider vast, previously unthinkable volumes of information, all at once. Instead of a normal computer considering each potential solution to a problem one-by-one, a quantum computer can consider all possible paths and outcomes at the same time.

This allows quantum computers to process information a lot faster, a lot more efficiently and at a scale previously unimagined. More importantly, however, because they use quantum mechanics, which are the foundation to physics and chemistry, quantum computers can analyse and efficiently process even the most complicated scenarios, something that remains outside the realm of possibility for even our most powerful supercomputers.

People often consider quantum computers to just be better computers, but quantum computers are as profoundly different to normal or even supercomputers, as a lightbulb is different to a candle.

Practical applications of quantum computing

It's unlikely we will ever have quantum computing chips in our smartphones or home computers. Quantum computers are incredibly sensitive to interference, and have to be kept isolated and at nearzero temperatures (that's -273 degrees Celsius, colder than outer space). However, as researchers get ever closer to quantum supremacy - the point at which a quantum computer can regularly outperform normal computers - we are likely to see more widespread adoption for a broad range of use cases.

For example, in 2019, Google's quantum computer attempted a calculation that would have taken our current supercomputers roughly 10 000 years to do. Their quantum computer completed the calculation in four minutes. This is the essence of what’s possible with a viable quantum computer.

Applications such as drug design and development, weather forecasting, climate change modelling and traffic optimisation could see quantum computing gaining mainstream use in the near future.

For cybersecurity professionals, quantum cryptography holds the promise of total information security. While quantum computers could arguably be used to easily crack encryption codes thanks to their hyper-fast computing capabilities, using quantum encryption could make it absolutely impossible to break the code.

In financial services, quantum computing is expected to transform financial modelling. JPMorgan Chase is part of IBM's Q Network, and aims to use quantum computing to improve risk modelling as a start. Beyond risk assessment, practical applications of quantum computing in finance beckons to be explored, with researchers noting that "the entire financial market can be modelled as a quantum process".

Simulating economic forecasts and optimising global portfolios are just a few of the untapped areas worth exploring. Quantum computing is not only a next step in our technological development, it will accelerate the power and maturity of our current next-generation technologies, including artificial intelligence and advanced analytics.

Today's intelligent enterprises use cloud computing and intelligent technologies - such as AI and IoT - to accelerate productivity and enable real-time decisionmaking. With quantum computing, intelligent enterprises would be able to consider all possibilities at the same time, allowing decision-makers to manage any uncertainty in ways previously unimagined.