Quantum computing having a moment. But the technology is futuristic

He does not have the buzzing of artificial intelligence, but quantum computer science has a clean moment.

Some of the most powerful institutions in the world, including Google,, Microsoft,, Amazon,, IBM And the American government spends several million dollars in a race to develop and build the first practical quantum computer.

Quantum technology startups attracted around $ 2 billion last year, according to a MCKINSEY & CO report.While investors accumulate in an industry that could have almost $ 100 billion in revenues in a decade.

But there is not much business today. In total, quantum IT companies generated less than $ 750 million in revenues in 2024, according to the same report.

But more and more, we hear about a great breakthrough.

In the past year, Microsoft revealed His first quantum chip, Google leaders said Technology can only be five years old, Amazon presented Its quantum processor correction of error and IBM describe Its plan to build a significant quantum computer by 2029.

There are dozens of small businesses and universities working on mathematics, software or underlying potential commercial models. Some companies are even listed on the stock market and may see their shares go up or collapse according to a nucleus of news.

In January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Sending IT stocks Quantum in shock When he said that 15 years were “on the early side” to consider the duration of quantum computer science would be useful. He said at the time that 20 years was a delay that “a bunch of us would believe”.

Two months later, he redirected The comments, but also expressed their surprise that they moved the markets, or that there were even markets to move.

“How could a quantum IT company be public?” Huang said in March.

Currently, there is nothing useful that quantum computers can do. They are purely for research.

But the promise is clear. If technology works, it can bite certain types of numbers and perform tasks that are currently impossible on a traditional computer, or that would require so much time that the universe would end before its end.

To imagine a quantum computer, you must fundamentally change how you consider what it means to calculate.

A traditional computer works because there are billions of transistors on each chip. These transistors can be those or zeros – on or out or deactivated. In large numbers, transistors can represent almost all figures, refer to parts of the memory of the system and make arithmetic. This is how every computer in the world works today.

In a quantum computer, the system uses qubits instead of transistors. It is much more complicated than those and zeros. The question of whether qubits are activated or deactivated are determined by quantum mechanics, and all qubits are “tangled”, which means that a change in one will affect the probability of others.

Operating qubits may require significant infrastructure. For example, some quantum computers should be used at very cold temperatures, near absolute zero.

Until now, a large part of the quantum applications concern simulation of chemistry and physics.

“Quantum computers will not be the calculation of choice for each application, and it’s OK,” said Krysta Svore, vice-president of advanced quantum development of Microsoft. “Even if we simply use quantum computers for materials science and chemistry, 96% of manufactured products in the world depend on chemistry and materials.”

Security researchers are concerned about what they call Q-duOr the day an effective quantum computer is created. They predict chaos when passwords and encryption begin to fail mysteriously.

“In addition to its potential advantages, quantum IT also has significant risks for economic and national security in the United States,” said Biden White House A memo of national security. A relevant quantum computer cryptographically “could compromise civil and military communications, undermine supervision and control systems for critical infrastructure and overcome the security protocols for most of the internet -based financial transactions,” said memo.

There is no practical application or algorithm that can be executed on a quantum computer that cannot be accomplished today on a normal silicon digital computer.

However, several groups say they have proven “quantum supremacy”, indicating that they have made a problem on a quantum computer that would have taken much more time with a traditional computer. The actions were all abstract.

Google was the first to declare quantum supremacy in 2019, describing the accomplishment of its quantum computer as “reference. “The task he has performed is called random circuits sampling, which is mainly used only to test quantum computers.

Google says that the researchers gave a computer to the random instructions to make a problem as complex as possible under quantum mechanics. Its researchers were then able to show that a quantum computer is faster to decipher the quantum problem. Last year, Google said that its new faster quantum computer sycamore had widened the performance gap.

In terms of future real world applications, most of the quantum computers potential is found in the fields of research on medicine, chemistry and materials.

Google points to the discovery of drugs or the search for molecules that could be useful drugs. He also indicates that quantum computers will be able to do the science necessary to market fusion energy.

When Microsoft announced its first quantum chip in February, society has highlighted the problems of chemistry and materials science, such as some materials corrude or how to compost plastic.

There is also a certain optimism that quantum computers will be well suited to generate training data for AI applications, in particular for situations or problems with a large number of potential solutions.

A Google researcher Maintains a web page which catalog many of the most important quantum algorithms.

The most famous is Shor algorithmWho has shown that a quantum computer would be able to find primary factors of a large number much faster than what is currently possible on a digital computer.

When the algorithm was discovered in 1994, it sparked a certain concern by soldiers from around the world. Many of them use a encryption method called RSA, which needs the process of taking large numbers into account to be difficult in order to keep the data secret.

“Without effective attenuation, the impact of the contradictory use of a quantum computer could be devastating [national security systems] And our nation, “the pentagon said in 2021.

Microsoft has recognized the national security factor and even supervised quantum security as a breed against China.

“While most believe that the United States still occupies the main position, we cannot afford to exclude the possibility of a strategic surprise or that China could already be in parity with the United States,” said Microsoft Brad Smith president wrote In a blog article in April.

The government has led an effort to move encryption to so-called post-auntum methods, which cannot be broken by a quantum computer. Companies such as Apple have already started to integrate post-quantum encryption in its services like Imessage.

But previous communications can always contain secrets. Intelligence agencies and other pirates often collect encrypted data while waiting for one day to be deciphered.

For the moment, a large part of the work in quantum is still quite academic.

Most advanced equipment companies are working today on “error correction” or a variety of methods intended to reduce the number of errors and make them less harmful when they occur.

In current quantum computers, qubits fail as often as 1 in 1,000 times they are used, according to Microsoft researchers. Microsoft said Last week, she was able to reduce the error rate by 1,000 times thanks to a new approach.

Several improvements in error correction have been announced in the past year, which is one of the reasons why researchers and engineers are increasingly convinced that they will be able to build a quantum computer.

The next problem to be resolved is to increase computers.

Google’s new willow of willow 105 qubits. Microsoft’s Majorana chip has eight. IBM Starling plans to have 200 qubits. The Amazon Ocelot chip has 14 qubits. In the coming years, these figures must go up. Google and Microsoft say that a really useful quantum computer will need a million qubits.

WATCH: Quantum IT reaches an inflection point