Quantum Supremacy

Google recently claimed it has developed a quantum computer that can perform, in a few minutes, tasks that would require 10,000 years for even the most powerful supercomputers today.

Quantum computing is based on the fact that, at the quantum level, a single particle can hold two values. Unlike traditional computers where each bit of information is stored as either 0 or 1, quantum bits – also known as qubits – can be both, and the number of values (which correlates to computing power) grows exponentially with the number of qubits. For example, two qubits can hold four (22) values; ten qubits can hold 1,024 (210) values; and fifty qubits can hold more than one quadrillion (250) values.

But qubits are extremely unstable, and creating these elusive particles is a monumental challenge that requires special metals super-cooled to temperatures near absolute zero (-460 degrees Fahrenheit or -273 degrees Celsius). So, while this represents a huge breakthrough in quantum computing, it is still basically a proof-of-concept design, and it will likely take years to exploit its full potential.

Regardless, governments and venture capitalists are already investing millions of dollars to explore the technology, which would have broad application in many fields including security, cryptography, medicine and materials engineering.