- Worried about Moore's Law ending?
Let me introduce you to quantum computing.
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You may have heard the
news that Google's AI lab
recently announced it had developed
a quantum computer capable of solving
a certain type of mathematical problem
over 100 million times faster than a
single core processor.
So what actually is a quantum computer?
Well it's a computer that takes advantage
of the weird physics of quantum mechanics.
At that level, things behave differently
than you would expect on
a classic macro level.
Classic computing relies
on bits, ones or zeroes.
Quantum computing relies on qubits.
We're talking about zeroes
and ones at the same time!
By bundling these
together and applying them
to something called a quantum gate,
you can solve problems in a massive
parallel process instead of in sequence
and that saves a huge amount of time.
So, does this mean we're all going to have
these super mega powerful
computers in a year's time?
Not quite.
Quantum computers are very special beasts.
For one thing, Google's quantum computer
has a processor that's lowered down
to a temperature that's
just above absolute zero
and you're not gonna find
that in your average laptop.
For another, they're really only good
for certain types of problems,
like optimization problems.
The classic example is
the traveling salesman.
You got a salesman who has
to go to various cities
and you wanna figure out
the most efficient route,
but every time you add another city,
the problem gets more complex.
If you were to feed this
to a classical computer
using a straightforward algorithm,
it would go through every
single possible option
then compare all the results at the end
which could take centuries
and by that time,
your traveling salesman has ceased to be.
But the quantum computer uses a different
methodology called quantum annealing.
Now, the term annealing refers
to how metals cool down.
When they're hot, molecules are
bouncing all over the place,
but as the metal cools down,
the molecules settle
into low energy states.
Quantum annealing does the same thing
but on a quantum level.
It basically uses quantum mechanics
to determine the lowest energy state
and that's your answer.
It's whichever solution uses
the least amount of energy.
That means it's the most efficient,
or cheapest in the case
of the traveling salesman.
Alright, so Google's computer was able to
solve this optimization
problem much faster
than a classical computer
so case is closed right?
Not quite.
To be fair, the classical computer
was using an algorithm
called Simulated Annealing
and people have pointed out that if it had
used a different algorithm,
it may have performed
as well or better than
the quantum computer.
But this does put us one step closer
to true quantum computing
and that could really
transform our world in many ways.
For example, cyber security.
But if you want to learn more about that,
we did a full episode of
Forward Thinking on it
so you should check that out.
Now this leads me to a question
for all of you out there,
what sort of futuristic computing
gets you really excited?
Is it quantum computing or DNA
computing or something else?
Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks to Toyota for sponsoring this show
and making it possible.
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