The last few years have brought some of the technological challenges being faced by humanity into particularly sharp focus: The need to develop new medicines and advanced chemicals, to increase data security and combat climate change.
These are all deep, multi-faceted issues, but they have one thing in common: computing plays a critical role in the development of the technologies that offer solutions. In all cases, there is an obstacle to progress in that some of those computations are just too difficult to solve with the computers of today.
In fact, some of these problems are so hard that even with computers that were hundreds, thousands, or millions of times more powerful they would still not be solvable.
This is where quantum computing comes in. By processing information stored in quantum particles we can enable a new kind of computing, working on totally different underlying physics to the computers of today.
This approach to computing opens up new ways of solving some of these otherwise impossible problems— and has the potential to accelerate the technology development that is urgently needed in climate, energy, healthcare and other fields.
This technology does not exist today, but it is rapidly progressing, and is likely to soon be within reach. From the perspective of a user the quantum computers of the future will appear like any other computer: someone writes code, the computer runs, and returns data.
But two big challenges remain for the power of quantum computers to be fully realized. The first challenge is to build a robust quantum processor – PsiQuantum’s approach is to achieve this using conventional silicon chips that process information using individual photons as well as electronics.
The second challenge is the design and discovery of new quantum algorithms – an area still in its infancy. Applications are already known that have the potential to accelerate development of technology in the cars we drive, the medicines we take, and the industrial processes that produce everything from fertilizers to batteries for electric vehicles.
But almost certainly, the most exciting applications of quantum computers are yet to be
discovered.
Article by Dr Naomi Nickerson
Mike E. Halsall:
Do you agree with Naomi's opinions? Is PsiQuantum's hardware work enough, should they co-develop quantum software & algorithms, or rely on others to do that? Her conclusion appears to be that quantum computing will help us rebalance the carbon cycle - by being able to solve problems that we simply cannot solve today, but the timeframe for quantum computing for me remains unclear.
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