IBM is opening up one of the most complex and
least understood areas of computing to everyone by launching the
first quantum computing service in the cloud, hoping that by giving
students, researchers and academics the opportunity to use a quantum
computer it will help advance development of the technology.
IBM has erected a five qubit quantum computer
at its T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and
using its IBM Cloud service has connected it to the world, giving users a
simple and straightforward interface to access the power of a quantum
computer from their desktop PC or even their smartphones and tablets.
“If you want to understand what a true quantum
computer will do for you and how it works, this is the place to do
it," Dario Gil, vice president of science and solutions, IBM Research
said in a statement. ”You won’t experience it anywhere else.”
IBM is just one of many companies and
organizations working on the development of quantum computing with
Google, NASA, Intel, Microsoft and even the CIA, seeking to build a
computer that has the potential to be exponentially faster than today’s
conventional computers.
In December, Google announced a watershed moment
in quantum computing when, in collaboration with NASA, it proved its
quantum computer — built by controversial Canadian company D-Wave — had
solved a specific problem 100 million times faster than a conventional
computer could. To put it another way, Google’s quantum computer did in
one second what it would take a conventional system 10,000 years to
complete.
The idea of a quantum computer has been around
for some time with the original concept rooted as far back as the
1960s. While progress toward the practical implementation of this
technology has been moving along at a steady pace, it is still not at a
point where quantum computers are a reality.
The science behind quantum computers is
complex. In short, such a system sees the traditional bits used in
digital communications replaced with quantum bits, or qubits. Qubits
exist in a state of superposition, meaning they can be in both on/off
states at once, rather than restricted to either binary state as
traditional bits function — which means calculations can be performed
much faster.
Today’s quantum computers can solve very
specific problems very fast, but for quantum computers to become truly
powerful, it will be necessary to build what is called a “universal
quantum computer,” and IBM says that is still some way off.
“It is a beautiful challenge to pursue the
path to build the first universal quantum computer, but it requires us
to change how we think about the world,“ Gil said. "Access to early
quantum computing prototypes will be key in imagining and developing
future applications.”
The potential uses for quantum computing
systems is huge, ranging from securing cloud computing systems to
helping in the development of drugs to accelerating the speed of
artificial intelligence systems.
Using
a quantum computer from the Canadian company D-Wave, Google and NASA
this week published research that showed for the first time a quantum
computer was several orders of magnitude faster than a conventional
computer. Photo: D-Wave
IBM will be hoping that giving everyone access
to its system — which is not the most powerful in the world — those
using it will be able to assess its reliability and verify that it works
in the way it says it does, something which is vitally important in
quantum computing.
D-Wave, based in Burnaby, British Columbia,
and the best-known manufacturer of quantum computers, has been dogged by
controversy. For the last eight years scientists and researchers have
consistently said the company’s chips did not show any quantum speedup.
The demonstration in December — which has yet to be peer reviewed — will
go a long way to helping its credibility, but the challenge of getting
its quantum computer to solve a real world problem remains.
Post a Comment