Quantum Computing Begins to Emerge

Since the invention of the transistor in the late 1940s, the increasing density of manufacturable circuits has always led to faster and cheaper machines. According to Moore's Law, computers double in speed every 18 months, while their price-performance ratio is cut in half.

At every point where this trend appeared ready to stall, we've found new ways forward. For example, while clock speeds have been stalled at around 4 GHz, microprocessors have added multiple cores running at those speeds. However, quantum mechanics will converge with the complexities of parallel processing to create a practical limit to the power of traditional computers.

But, ironically the same quantum mechanical principles that will eventually block the road toward ever more powerful conventional computers will also offer the opportunity to create specialized computers. As we've discussed in prior issues, quantum computing represents an entirely new way of computing aimed at solving problems that are impractical or impossible for traditional computers.

In conventional electronic computers, a bit of data is represented as either a 0 or a 1. Data is stored by this rule of binary logic. In the weird world of quantum mechanics, a quantum bit, or "qubit," can not only register a 0 or a 1, it can register both simultaneously — a phenomenon known as "superposition." Although it is difficult to grasp how this can be, the precise laws of quantum mechanics enable predictions of what quantum computers will do.

A small computer of only a few tens of thousands of qubits would be enormously powerful, since qubits in superposition work together to handle exponentially more data. In fact, for some applications, they'd be more powerful than all the computers that have ever been built — combined. But getting to tens of thousands of qubits is still an enormous hurdle.

However, a big step in quantum computing has recently been reached: the sale of the first "quantum computer." It was purchased by Lockheed Martin for $10 million.¹

Called the D-Wave One, this computer features 128 qubits. The qubits are formed by loops of niobium metal, a material that becomes a superconductor at very low temperatures. Niobium is commonly used in MRI scanners. Couplers, also made of niobium, link the qubits and control how the magnetic fields, which represent the qubits, affect each other.²

How does it work? Fir... To read the full article, you must be a Trends Magazine Subscriber. To learn more, click here