DEEP DIVE: Quantum Leaps

Artificial Intelligence is just one of several technological innovations that are likely to drive the economy during the Roaring 2020s. The promise of quantum computing—and what humans can accomplish with such vast amounts of computing power—makes scientists giddy. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM are leading the race to develop these computers and offer access to them in the cloud.

Here are some recent developments in the area:

(1) Google boasts supremacy

The king of search claims quantum supremacy. The latest iteration of its Sycamore quantum system has 70 qubits and a quantum processor that’s 241 million times more powerful than the company’s previous offering. Google’s quantum computer “can outperform the most powerful supercomputer in the world, running calculations that would take the massive 1.68 exaflops ‘Frontier’ system at Oak Ridge National Laboratories 47 years to complete,” explained a July 18 article in The Next Platform.

(2) Amazon plays host

Amazon Bracket is a service that lets users build their own quantum algorithms and then test them on quantum computers in Amazon’s cloud. Amazon reports that a number of organizations are tapping into quantum computing in Amazon’s cloud, including the Technology Innovation Institute, a scientific research center that’s a part of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council; Volkswagen Group; Fidelity Center for Applied Technology; Amgen; multinational power company Enel; Aioli, an insurance agency; and the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo.