Quantum computing, when it comes, will usher in a new era of IT – not just in terms of increased power and microscopic size, but also sophistication.
So says Alan Woodward, CTO at business and information technology consultancy Charteris. A chartered physicist, he points to the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, and the behaviour of energy as packets, or quanta, at an atomic level.
“But light doesn’t only travel in quanta: it also travels as waves, and this gives rise to the phenomenon known as particle-wave duality,” he explains. “And an important implication is that, at certain sub-atomic conditions, photons, electrons and other types of energy do not behave only as particles or only as waves, but can exhibit properties of both.”
So whereas in a classical computer, a ‘bit’ is a fundamental unit of information, in a quantum computer, it can exist not in one of two states but in one of four. Quantum bits, or ‘qubits’, are not binary but quaternary.
Woodward explains the result as a blend, or superposition, of states founded on probabilities, and hence the sophistication.
“For example: computers that play chess – arguably one of the most successful current applications of artificial intelligence – use programs that make extensive use of the analysis of the probabilities of the opponent making a certain response,” he explains.
“So, people who consider quantum computing to be the future of IT argue that the qubit liberates conventional computing from simplistic on/off engineering. Quantum computing may facilitate new types of computer applications … and enabling us to escape the limitations of Moore’s Law,” he adds.
He also believes that quantum computing may even be the route to providing powerful approximations to higher functions of the human mind, which conventional computers are notoriously bad at replicating. “There is already clear evidence that quantum computing is likely to facilitate the creation of levels of computer security way beyond what is currently achievable,” he asserts.
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