Quantum Computing Explained

The hype around quantum computers is unmatched, they have been dubbed as ‘The Cancer, aging and death solvers”. Some go as far as calling them the ‘ultimate hackers’ and will break RSA encryption.

Well, I am currently playing with these babies, specifically the IBM quantum computers, and I will share what I have learned so far.

Contents:

Background

Quantum Properties

Quantum AI

Quantum Internet

Myths

Sources

Background

Traditional computers process tasks using binary 101100. Let’s imagine this as a heads and tales system with a coin. Heads may represent 1 and tails zero, we are giving the computer instructions based on a heads or tails.

As you can imagine this electric charge system is very limiting as the computer needs to select one or zero, this task cannot be done simultaneously.

With quantum computers, we are using spins, similar to how you would spin a coin. It can be 1, 0, or both.

Now the computer does not have to choose between 1 or 0, it can process both simultaneously. Using new generational chips which follow the rules of quantum mechanics.

The chips contain Qubits/quantum bits which can be manipulated into different states.

These states are:

• Superposition
• Entanglement

Quantum Superposition

Quantum superposition states that “ Every quantum object is in the super position of all the states that it can be found in!”

Whenever we measure the electron spin it can be either up or down state. A Qubit is at a super positional state of 0 +1, Up +down or either of the two.

Quantum Entanglement

Described by the great scientist Albert Einstein as “Spukhafte Fernwirkung” translated to Spooky action at a distance.

Consider we have two electrons and equate the total spin to zero, which can be written as linear combinations of up, down and down, up.

If the electrons are separated to a point where interaction is impossible, when we change one of them, then the other electron will also be changed.

These principles are used by research scientists to manipulate the building block of a quantum computer, the qubit.

This is done using microwave pulses that flow all the way down the cables.

Quantum AI

Quantum Artificial intelligence is a field that is centralized on developing quantum algorithms to further enhance machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Some time back Google announced Tensor Flow Quantum (TFQ) which is an open source library to develop AI quantum systems.

These are some of the useful functions of this library:

• Quantum data can be represented as Tensors within TFQ and further converted to classical datasets.
• TFQ evaluates the quantum data and selects a neural network based on this, the agenda is to extract information in an entangled state.
• Additionally TFQ evaluates classical and quantum data and determines the correlation of the two.

Quantum Internet

Quantum internet is simply the transmission of data using quantum effects and is secured with quantum cryptography.

Using quantum cryptography we can secure data transfers by utilizing the measurement of quantum mechanics. This will irreversibly changes the state of quantum particles.

When we can encode a message with quantum particles, once the message is intercepted by a hacker, this will be detected. As hackers measure will change the behavior of the particles.

Common Myths

• Quantum Internet can transfer data faster that the speed of Light! Not true as quantum mechanics respects the speed of light limit.
• Quantum computers will break RSA encryption and leave us all vulnerable! Semi- true, RSA encryption can be broken by finding the prime factors of large numbers. This task will take thousands of years to be completed by computers but can be computed simplistically by quantum computers.
• Adding more qubits to chips will escalate quantum supremacy! Adding more qubits adds more problems as quantum computers are very sensitive to noise, environmental effects, temperature.
• In the next 5 to 10 years quantum computing will solve climate change, cancer, take us to immortality and eventually be the end of humanity! Well quantum computing is still very immature, more like the Harvard’s Mark 1 stage.

Sources:

https://www.ibm.com/quantum-computing/

https://quantumai.google/