Quantum Computers

The future of quantum computing is hybrid. A diverse set of quantum technologies—combined with classical computing hardware—will work in tandem to serve our future needs. No one company is going to reach a discrete end point. Rather, we must test, collaborate, and share knowledge to reach a collective future. Just as many diverse members of the classical ecosystem figured out how to make computers the most important technology of the 20th century, a new diverse ecosystem will make quantum computing the most important technology of the 21st.

In March 2017, IBM announced an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computing systems called IBM Q. The company also released a new API (Application Program Interface) for the IBM Quantum Experience that enables developers and programmers to begin building interfaces between its existing five quantum bit (qubit) cloud-based quantum computer and classical computers, without needing a deep background in quantum physics.

In 1981, at a conference co-organized by MIT and IBM, physicist Richard Feynman urged the world to build a quantum computer. He said "Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy."[65]

In December 2012, the first dedicated quantum computing software company, 1QBit was founded in Vancouver, BC.[98] 1QBit is the first company to focus exclusively on commercializing software applications for commercially available quantum computers, including the D-Wave Two. 1QBit's research demonstrated the ability of superconducting quantum annealing processors to solve real-world problems.[99]

Wondering how to actually use a quantum computer? This infographic explains the process. A quantum experiment is defined on a regular computer and translated by electronics into a series of microwave pulses, which travel to the bottom of the dilution refrigerator, that houses the quantum chip. These microwaves can be controlled to change the state on the quantum processor. Relevant measurements specified by the code are taken and then returned as output, along with information on how the qubits and dilution refrigerator were performing at the time of the experiment.

A good comparison for the progression is that of Nvidia’s graphics processor. Over time, its perception evolved from that of a hyper-specialized unit for niche, complex applications to that of a powerful technology with real-world applications in everything from scalable AI for autonomous vehicles to consumer drones. Nvidia’s founding theory was similar to quantum computing’s: processors capable of solving complex problems for graphics could also solve other problems faster than existing computing systems can. It’s proved that its graphics processing units (GPU) can accelerate many computations, but is everyone using an Nvidia-powered laptop or phone? No—because such a unit is not needed for every type of daily computation. Plus, Nvidia’s GPUs operate in hybrid systems alongside traditional central processing units (CPU).

In 2011, D-Wave Systems announced the first commercial quantum annealer, the D-Wave One, claiming a 128 qubit processor. On May 25, 2011, Lockheed Martin agreed to purchase a D-Wave One system.[79] Lockheed and the University of Southern California (USC) will house the D-Wave One at the newly formed USC Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center.[80] D-Wave's engineers designed the chips with an empirical approach, focusing on solving particular problems. Investors liked this more than academics, who said D-Wave had not demonstrated they really had a quantum computer. Criticism softened after a D-Wave paper in Nature, that proved the chips have some quantum properties.[81][82] Two published papers have suggested that the D-Wave machine's operation can be explained classically, rather than requiring quantum models.[83][84] Later work showed that classical models are insufficient when all available data is considered.[85] Experts remain divided on the ultimate classification of the D-Wave systems though their quantum behavior was established concretely with a demonstration of entanglement.[86]

Finally, quantum states have a phase, and so can undergo interference. Quantum interference can be understood similarly to wave interference; when two waves are in phase, their amplitudes add, and when they are out of phase, their amplitudes cancel.

The Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) is home of one of the few QKD prototypes in the world. “Alice,” a device located at IQC headquarters, receives half of the entangled (highly correlated) one of the photons generated by a laser on the roof of a building at the University of Waterloo. “Bob” is housed at the nearby Perimeter Institute, and receives the other half of the entangled photons.

Plenty. For example, quantum computers will be able to efficiently simulate quantum systems, which is what famous physicist Richard Feynman proposed in 1982, effectively kick-starting the field. Simulation of quantum systems has been said to be a "holy grail" of quantum computing: it will allow us to study, in remarkable detail, the interactions between atoms and molecules. This could help us design new drugs and new materials, such as superconductors that work at room temperature. Another of the many tasks for which the quantum computer is inherently faster than a classical computer is at searching through a space of potential solutions for the best solution. Researchers are constantly working on new quantum algorithms and applications. But the true potential of quantum computers likely hasn’t even been imagined yet. The inventors of the laser surely didn’t envision supermarket checkout scanners, CD players and eye surgery. Similarly, the future uses of quantum computers are bound only by imagination.

We believe our job is to demonstrate clear economic benefit to using a quantum computer in a practical application versus a classical computer. This differs from the much-talked-about goal of “quantum supremacy,” which requires proving a quantum computer can solve a synthetic (not practical) problem faster or better than any classical system that’s ever existed. Quantum supremacy is a worthy theoretical goal, but we’ve chosen to instead focus on practical advantages in real-world problems.

However, other cryptographic algorithms do not appear to be broken by those algorithms.[15][16] Some public-key algorithms are based on problems other than the integer factorization and discrete logarithm problems to which Shor's algorithm applies, like the McEliece cryptosystem based on a problem in coding theory.[15][17] Lattice-based cryptosystems are also not known to be broken by quantum computers, and finding a polynomial time algorithm for solving the dihedral hidden subgroup problem, which would break many lattice based cryptosystems, is a well-studied open problem.[18] It has been proven that applying Grover's algorithm to break a symmetric (secret key) algorithm by brute force requires time equal to roughly 2n/2 invocations of the underlying cryptographic algorithm, compared with roughly 2n in the classical case,[19] meaning that symmetric key lengths are effectively halved: AES-256 would have the same security against an attack using Grover's algorithm that AES-128 has against classical brute-force search (see Key size). Quantum cryptography could potentially fulfill some of the functions of public key cryptography. Quantum-based cryptographic systems could therefore be more secure than traditional systems against quantum hacking