Quantum computing is said to be the future of electronics. Click here to learn more about our future computers!
Figure 1: A current-day quantum computer
Introduction
One of the concepts that revolutionized and changed the trajectory of modern physics and changed the subject forever is quantum mechanics. Moving away from the macroscopic aspects of Newtonian mechanics, it theorised that what if energy came in to dispersion in tiny packets called quanta.
History of Quantum Computers
Now during the 1980’s, with the boom of traditional computers, there came a very interesting notion to integrate quantum mechanics. The following two decades were spent in bringing this to life. The vast amount of possibilities that lie within the quantum mechanics realm include solving problems in cybersecurity, drug development, weather forecasting, and multiple other useful applications. Quantum computers solve problems where supercomputers fall short such as when sorting through big database of protein synthesis: A supercomputer may fail to make out the subtle patterns that determine how these proteins behave, while a quantum algorithms would make finding these patterns simpler by creating multi-dimensional spaces where individual linking data points emerge. One of the advantages of quantum computing over classical computers is that they do not require extensive writing of code and new languages paving more applications without mch human intervention.
The successful creation of the first quantum computer came through in 2019, designed by IBM. This computer was a major breakthrough in the field and in the same year, researchers from the Griffith University in Australia and Nanyang technological university in Singapore brought in another quantum computer which could predict the future with having 16 possible outcomes!
How do Quantum Computers Work?
While quantum computing is a relatively new concept in the tech world, it has massive potential. Quantum computers' advantage over traditional computers is the elimination of the binary bits and instead the use of qubits. Qubits are the building blocks in quantum computing and are similar to the binary bits of a more traditional computer. The difference that a quit has is that with each additional qubit, the processing power doubles.
The recent example of a working and practical qubit is the superconducting transmon qubit which is made of superconducting materials like niobium and aluminium. The main part when working with the superconducting qubit is that a very low temperature must be maintained at all times - around 15 millikelvin. Failing to attain this temperature may result in greater error probability. Although the road to complete success of quantum computing seems like a long way to go, it is exciting to go through how far we can go with technology in the future making life more sophisticated and easier for researchers and everyday people alike.
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