Technology or Use Case: What Will Drive Quantum Computing?

Quantum computing technology will likely solve difficult problems that today’s computers can’t. But what will really be the leading applications of quantum computing? What can apply to quantum from the journey of mobile phones, the Internet, and other breakthrough technologies? Yuval Boger, CMO, Classiq Technologies, answers these questions.

Marty Cooper, the inventor of the mobile phone, said in 1981, “Mobile phones will absolutely never replace the wired telephone.”

Robert Metcalfe, also a smart person, invented Ethernet and co-founded networking giant 3Com, but predicted in 1995 that “…the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”

As we know, both predictions were spectacularly wrong.

What happened? It may be that both Cooper and Metcalfe considered the problem that the technology was designed to solve instead of considering all the additional use cases that could develop once the technology existed. Both mobile phones and the Internet are used today for an incredibly wide range of applications, much wider than the original reason for their invention. Some technologies were invented even without a clear application for them. The laser, for instance, was described as “a solution looking for a problem”. 

What does this teach us about quantum computing? Today, it appears that quantum computing could be exceptionally useful in solving difficult problems that are beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful classical computers. We envision new discoveries in material sciences because it’s much easier to simulate complex molecules on quantum computers, mostly because electrons and protons which make up molecules exhibit quantum behavior on their own. We can imagine having better portfolio optimization and risk analysis for financial services. We believe that route optimization, a critical algorithm for supply chain management, will be easier to do on quantum computers. But these solutions are those that we envision even before the technology is mature. If this is what we see today, imagine how useful quantum computing will become in a few years.

What Is Holding Quantum Computers Back?

What’s holding quantum computers back today from delivering these expected benefits? A few things:

• • Today’s quantum computers have just a few qubits. Unlike classical computers that use binary bits – 0 or 1 – quantum computers use quantum bits (qubits) that can be a simultaneous combination – a superposition – of both 0 and 1 and thus can analyze multiple scenarios simultaneously. A 20-qubit quantum computer can analyze a million options at the same time and potentially offer the possibility of a dramatic speed-up in processing times. But today’s quantum computers have dozens of qubits, and, in fact, their operation can be simulated on classical computers. So if quantum algorithms today can be executed on classical computers, there is little reason to use quantum computers today.
  • These qubits are noisy. By that, I mean that because of interactions with the environment, qubits today can keep their superposition state intact only for very short periods of time, typically a few milliseconds. As a result, complex algorithms designed to be executed purely on quantum machines are impossible to run. While there are methods to achieve ‘error correction’, these methods require very many qubits, and there are no systems with so many qubits today. 
  • Software development platforms are in their infancy. Today, quantum programming is done at what is known as ‘the gate level’, defining the connectivity between qubits and ‘quantum gates’ that operate on them. For those familiar with electronic design, this is similar to manually creating a ‘netlist’ of electrical components. Such methods are fine when dealing with a few qubits but quickly become impractical when hundreds or thousands of qubits become available. 

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Quantum Computing Has a Future

However, there are several developments that make me particularly optimistic about the impact of quantum computing:

• • Despite the low qubit count of existing hardware and the noisy qubits, several high-impact algorithms such as VQE (Variational Quantum Eigensolver), QAOA (Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm), and HHL (the initials of its authors) were invented. These algorithms overcome some of the limitations of today’s machines by repeatedly running short algorithms on quantum computers, examining the results with classical computers, and adjusting the quantum algorithm based on that. These algorithms are able to solve interesting optimization problems, perform some chemical simulations and otherwise give us a taste of what’s to come. Imagine how many more algorithms will be developed once quantum computers allow running larger programs.
  • Quantum hardware is growing in leaps and bounds. IBM, for instance, has announcedOpens a new window a hardware roadmap to deliver machines with 127 qubits in 2021, 433 in 2022 and 1121 qubits in 2023. Other vendors, such as Honeywell, are predicting similar growth. These machines will be able to do more than what can be simulated on classical machines.
  • An increasing number of quantum machines are available for use on the cloud. This makes them accessible to researchers worldwide, even those without the budget or facilities to host their own quantum computers.
  • The number of quantum developers has significantly increased in recent years. One would expect that this increase will also lead to the discovery of new algorithms as well as the exploration of additional applications.
  • Software environments are improving as well. Borrowing on concepts from electronic design, we are starting to see environments that provide the quantum equivalent of VHDL, a high-level function description language that can then be synthesized into a complete quantum circuit.

What fantastic applications for quantum computing will emerge in a few years? Your guess is as good as mine, but even those use cases that we can envision today justify a significant investment in making both advanced quantum hardware as well as robust and flexible quantum software.

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