Although the term quantum computer can be associated with a miniature and elegant device, the latest research in this field is a far cry from anything available in the Apple Store. In a lab just 60 kilometers north of New York City, scientists are experimenting with a very crude quantum computer, and the whole device looks like something you might find in a dark corner of a basement. The cooling system that surrounds the computer is the size and shape of a water boiler like the one in any house.
Beneath that crude exterior is the heart of the computer, the quantum processor, a tiny precision-engineered chip about a centimeter on each side. Cooled to temperatures just above absolute zero, the computer, made by IBM and housed at the company’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., has 16 quantum bits, or qubits, that only allow calculations to be made. very simple.
Extraordinary computing power
However, if this computer could be further developed, it could transcend the current limits of computing. Computers based on the physics of the supersmall can solve puzzles that no other computer can, at least in theory, because quantum entities behave differently in larger spaces.
Quantum computers are not yet outpacing standard equipment. The most advanced ones are working with fewer than two dozen qubits. But scientists are striving to expand their own versions of quantum computers to 50 or 100 qubits, enough to perform certain calculations that the most powerful supercomputers ever invented can’t do.
quantum supremacy
The race is on to reach that milestone, known as quantum supremacy. Scientists should reach this goal in a couple of years, but supremacy is only an initial step, a symbolic marker similar to planting a flag in the ground of an uncharted island. The first tasks that quantum computers will do will be to solve artificial problems that a standard computer cannot solve but that will be relatively easy for a quantum one. Eventually, the hope is that these computers will become useful work tools for scientists and businesses.
This vision of quantum computers connected to the Internet has already begun. In 2016, the multinational IBM presented the Quantum Experience, a quantum computer that anyone in the world can access online for free. With just five qubits, the Quantum Experience is limited in what it can do, but IBM’s 16-qubit computer is in beta testing, so Quantum Experience users have plenty of room for improvement.
But to fully push quantum computing forward, scientists will need to show that their machines can outperform the best standard computers. A demonstration of such quantum supremacy could be just around the corner and come within the next five years.
