By - Nyah Lawrence
Our society has made huge advances in technology in the last few decades, Ada Lovelace created the first computer programming language in 1883 and since then the world has seen astronomical change, with the internet, artificial intelligence, and so much more. A relatively recent computing innovation is the quantum computer, first proposed by Paul Beinoff.
The main difference between a quantum computer and a classical computer is the use of qubits rather than bits, which is basically a quantum version of a normal binary bit. While a binary bit can either be 0 or 1, a qubit can be both at once, or more accurately, can be a coherent superposition of both.
This representation of both a 0 and a 1 at the same time allows quantum computers to calculate and solve problems that would be impractical for a classical computer to solve, this is known as quantum supremacy. A good example of this is when in 2019, Google claimed to have used quantum computing to solve a series of operations that would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to solve.
But how useful are quantum computers actually? While there are a few quantum computers out today, they are not stable or reliable enough to be used by modern standards, however even with the few computers that we do have, their power and potential is undeniable.
A major application of quantum computers would be quantum cryptography, specifically breaking RSA encryption, which is based on prime numbers and is most commonly used for credit card encryption. To properly convey how powerful a quantum computer is, to break a RSA 2048-bit encryption a classical computer would need 300 trillion years, while a quantum computer could potentially do it in 10 seconds.
Financial modelling is another application of quantum computing, as it will help speed up existing models and run extremely fast experiments that would otherwise be impractical.
In addition to that, this technology can also be used for quantum simulation, which could end up being the most important application and will allow scientists to simulate quantum systems that are essentially impossible to do on a classical supercomputer.
As more developments are made, more and more applications of quantum computing will be discovered. From what we know for now, we can safely assume that yes, quantum computers are the future of computing, be that in 5 or 25 years. Their potential and even the present advances in this field show very hopeful and promising implementations.
https://interestingengineering.com/googles-quantum-processor-may-achieve-quantum-supremacy-in-months
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