Quantum physics describes the behaviour of atoms and fundamental particles and quantum computer operates by controlling the behaviour of those particles, like electron and photons but during a way that is completely different from our regular computers. Quantum computers have the potential to impact numerous aspects of our lives including our security needs, our healthcare and even the web.
China, like always, has built the world’s most powerful computer. It is capable of performing a task 100 trillion times faster than the world’s super fastest computer. Back in 2019, Google came up with the first ever machine with quantum supremacy. The Chinese team claimed their machine, Jiuzhang to be 10 billion times faster than that of the Google’s.
A quantum computer works on the principles of quantum physics. While a normal computer performs calculations using bits that can be either 0 or 1, a quantum computer uses qubits that simultaneously have numerous states, that is, it can be both 0 and one at an equivalent time. A qubit (or quantum bit) is that the quantum mechanical analogue of a classical bit. These qubits are created using electrons, photons, atoms and even molecules.
Quantum bits or ‘qubits’ has two principles, one can exist during a superposition state of both zero and one simultaneously. This means that a group of two qubits are often during a superposition of 4 states, which therefore require four numbers to uniquely identify the state. So the amount of data stored in qubits is 2 to the facility of classical bits. The other one is entanglement which happens when two qubits in a superposition are co-related with one another, that is, a state of one whether it is a 0 or 1 or both depends on the state of another. Using these two principles qubits can act as a more sophisticated version of switches, helping quantum computers to solve difficult problems which are virtually impossible to be solved by classical computers.
“The real excitement about quantum is that the universe fundamentally works during a quantum way, so you’ll be ready to understand nature better,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Google told at MIT Technology Review in the wake of his company’s recent announcement. “It is youth , but where quantum physics shines is that the ability to simulate molecules, molecular processes, and that i think that’s where it’ll be the strongest. Drug discovery is a great example.”
In 2018, German car maker Daimler AG (the parent company of Mercedes-Benz) announced two distinct partnerships with quantum-computing powerhouses Google and IBM. Electric vehicles are “mainly based on a well-functioning cell chemistry of the batteries,” the company wrote in its magazine at the time. Quantum computing, it added, inspires “justified hope” for “initial results” in areas like cellular simulation and thus the aging of battery cells. Improved batteries for electric vehicles could help increase adoption of those vehicles.
Quantam computers are not here to replace classical computers, but there are radically several ways of operating which enables the latter to solve calculations which are out of reach for classical ones.