Quantum computing: technology’s new holy grail

By Nicky Godding, Editor

The achievement of quantum computing is the new holy grail for economists and scientists across the world, and the UK is competing hard with other major world economies to be the world’s first quantumready economy.

Quantum computing has the potential to solve many of humanity’s problems. It could help us identify the causes of major diseases, predict the next pandemic and solve engineering, technological or scientific conundrums, such as climate change, that have eluded the world for generations.

But what is this amazing technology?

Quantum computers aren’t just much, much faster versions of classical computers, they’re not even supercomputers. They will be around 158 million times faster and will, if quantum is achieved, be able to do in a few minutes what it would take a traditional supercomputer 10,000 years to achieve. They operate o entirely new rules, harnessing nature at its atomic, smallest scale. And in this nanoscale environment, our world acts very di erently.

As well as helping scientists solve major global problems, in the coming decades the productivity gains resulting from quantum computing are expected to surpass more than £341 billion globally.

Quantum computers are made up of qubits, the fundamental building blocks of a quantum computer which will ultimately allow scientists to process exponential amounts of information in ways that today’s computers will never be capable of.

Qubits are basic units of information. They have something – a particle or an electron, for example – that adopts two possible states, and while in superposition the quantum computer and specially built algorithms harness the power of both these states.

Think of spinning a coin with a head and a tail. Until it lands you don’t know which way it’s going to land. As it spins, scientists describe that as being in superposition. Then there is entanglement. If you have two coins and spin them around at the same time, the output of one depends on the other, making a special relationship between them.

But qubits are temperamental, and prone to be upset by noise. This is why quantum computers are shielded electro¬magnetically and cooled down to almost absolute zero.

So where is the UK in the quantum race? In February, Surrey-based Universal Quantum published new scientific data on its scalable trapped-ion quantum architecture for connecting quantum qubits across multiple computer microchips.

The company, a spin-o from University of Sussex, claimed that its trapped-ion technology is capable of transferring quantum bits at “record-breaking speed and accuracy”.

A research paper published in academic journal Nature Communications suggests the platform transfers qubits across microchips at a 99.9 per cent success rate.

Two new quantum computers that will trial Universal Quantum’s fundamental hypothesis are being funded by the German Aerospace Centre, to the tune of €67 million from its quantum grant award programme.

However, the UK is already a global leader in quantum technologies. In 2014 the government set up the National Quantum Technologies Programme, the first of its kind in the world, to begin taking technologies out of the research environment. The UK’s collaborative quantum community reflects that foresight from nearly 10 years ago.

And last year the Ministry of Defence acquired the UK government’s first quantum computer which it is using to explore ways in which quantum technology can be used to improve the UK’s defence.

In March, the government published a national quantum strategy. The government promises that its 10-year plan will fund new frontiers of quantum research, support and develop its growing quantum sector, prepare our wider economy for the quantum revolution and ensure that the UK leads internationally in the regulation and ethical use of quantum technologies.