As technological breakthroughs advance, quantum computing is becoming a new reality.
The Trump administration is planning to invest in some of the US’s quantum-focused firms, including companies like IonQ and Regetti Computing, in exchange for federal funds, according to Daniel Howley from Yahoo Finance.
This means that the US is going to use its money to fund quantum-focused companies to develop smarter and more efficient computers to solve problems.
This will affect the Carroll community because eventually, when quantum computers become mainstream, teachers, students, and other staff members will be able to find solutions to their problems. After all, quantum computers can process information more quickly than standard computers.
Quantum computers are devices that perform certain calculations much faster than a regular computer.
They achieve this through a process known as quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that studies the behavior of matter and energy at atomic and subatomic scales, according to Gordon Leslie Squires from Britannica. In quantum physics, particles like electrons and protons can act as both particles and waves at the same time. They can also be in more than one state at once – this is called superposition. Two particles can also become linked so that whatever happens to one instantly affects the other. This connection is called entanglement, according to the Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume III by Richard P. Feynman.
These principles form the foundation for quantum computing.
A problem that would take supercomputers hundreds of years could be solved much more quickly through quantum computers, according to a 2022 Quandela study by Liam Lysaght.
Discoveries of life-saving medicines, advanced materials, and sustainable manufacturing processes could be possible with quantum simulations of chemical reactions.
Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and cryptography, the practice of securing communication and information by converting data into a coded, unreadable format called ciphertext, can be made possible with the use of quantum computing, according to the Quandela story.
The main difference between quantum computers and regular computers is the use of qubits versus bits.
A regular computer uses processors known as central processing units (CPU), which act as the brains of modern computers, according to an October story in Yahoo Finance by Daniel Howley.
Transistors, switches inside a computer that react to an electrical signal, are in every CPU. Many chips have billions of transistors, according to Daniel Howley from Yahoo Finance.
Apps and programs are translated by CPUs using binary code, a machine language made up of 1s and 0s. Each 1 and 0 is called a bit, according to the Yahoo Finance story.
These bits are translated into videos, images, games, and apps, the Yahoo Finance story said.
Quantum computers use subatomic objects known as quantum bits, or qubits, instead of bits, according to Yahoo Finance.
Qubits can exist as a 1 and 0 or any combination of the two at the same time, as opposed to existing as a 1 or a 0 like a bit, according to the Howley story.
“Think of a qubit as a sphere,” explained Oskar Painter, director of quantum hardware at Amazon Web Services, to Yahoo Finance.. “There’s a north and south pole, and it can be any combination of 0 and 1 simultaneously,”
Scientists don’t know whether a qubit is a 1 or a 0 until they observe it.
“In the quantum world, the system itself can simultaneously be in several different states,” NYU assistant professor of applied physics Rupak Chatterjee told Yahoo Finance. “And until we measure, we don’t really know, necessarily, which exact state it’s in.”
Parallel processing is the ability to exist as a 1 and a 0, which enables quantum computers to solve calculations much faster than classical computers, according to the Yahoo Finance story.
Operating qubits is possible through superconducting systems that lower the temperature around the qubits to near absolute zero, using lasers to interact with atoms, or taking advantage of light particles, photons, in an extreme vacuum, the Yahoo Finance story said.
Quantum computers are connected to traditional computers to interact with a qubit and provide a readout of its performance, according to Howley’s story for Yahoo Finance.
Unfortunately, since qubits are small, they are open to interference. For example, a single atom could throw off the qubit, causing it to lose the information, Howley’s story in Yahoo Finance said.
“[Qubits] are very, very fragile,” explained Sridhar Tayur, professor of operations management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, to Yahoo Finance. “You can’t have 0 and 1 at the same time if it interacts with the environment.”
To counteract this, companies use what is known as quantum error correction. The idea behind quantum error correction is to use redundant qubits, according to Yahoo Finance’s October story.
“If I want to protect one qubit of information, I need to actually replicate it 1,000 times in order to get a single good, what we call logical qubit,” Painter said, according to the Yahoo Finance story.
This requires a significant amount of resources, so quantum computers won’t be reliable enough to use for calculations related to chemistry, to help discover new compounds, or to understand how atoms interact with each other until researchers find a solution, Yahoo Finance reported.
Despite the problems, in 2024, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google announced their own quantum computing chips. Nvidia has announced its own quantum investments, and many companies, such as IBM and Intel, have been working on their own chips, according to Howley’s story in Yahoo Finance.
