Today I’m going to be delving into Google’s new quantum computer. It’s 1.5 trillion times faster as of late, but is it all it’s cracked up to be?
A 53 qubit quantum computer developed by Google recently solved a calculation in 3 1/3 minutes that would take a normal super-computer 10,000 years to calculate. However, quantum computers derive their amazing computing efficiency from superposition states. For example, a pair of normal semi-conductor bits can store just one of four possible combinations of binary states (00, 01, 10 or 11) at any given time. A pair of quantum qubits can store all four combinations simultaneously, because each qubit can represent both binary values (0 and 1) at the same time. Therefore, as you add qubits to the quantum computer, your computing power will grow exponentially. On a research paper, this technology looks amazing. However, the technology is still in its growth stages, and there are many existing problems with the computers, a few being that entangled qubits can become untangled after short bits of time, and that they are susceptible to errors. All in all, this technology has amazing, almost unlimited potential. But first, we need to learn how to harness it, like so many other technologies.
See you soon,
Elliot
technolosophy 