Here's How Quantum Computing Could Change the World

Hindustan Times

5 days ago

With commercial grade quantum computers inching closer to reality, industries are already investigating their impact on everything, from food to medicine to streaming football games.
Quantum computers are expected to power certain computations that would take today's conventional computers years to solve, if they could at all.
Several companies promise commercial systems in the coming years, including IBM, which plans to deliver the world's first full scale fault-tolerant machine by 2029.
'Quantum today is kind of where GPUs were in 2012,' said IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna, referring to the chip that powered the AI boom. 'In 2012, nobody was counting on GPUs as a big business. But I think it's going to go faster.'
Companies today are working to figure out which of their business cases are best suited for quantum computing, even rewriting some scenarios as quantum software designed for future machines.
But even as they look forward to the business and societal value quantum promises, they're preparing for the risks that come with it: primarily the threat that quantum computers could break encryption and lay bare all our sensitive data.
Here are five ways quantum could change the world:
Faster internet
Comcast said quantum could help it deliver the fastest internet to the largest number of customers who need it at any given time.
The company operates over a million miles of fiber and cable that deliver internet to 31.5 million homes and businesses. That means that for any piece of data to travel from Point A to Point B, there's a near infinite number of combinations, said Elad Nafshi, Comcast's chief network officer.
Data going into New York for example, could travel along the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel or the Amtrak train tracks, he said. And the fastest route also depends on other factors like, if there's a fiber cut somewhere or a big surge of data into New York while everyone streams the Giants game.
Being able to calculate, in real time, all those variables to determine the optimal flow of data and deliver it at the fastest speeds for the highest number of people is something conventional computers struggle with. But, 'that's something that Quantum could do extremely well,' Nafshi said.
Better medicine
Moderna is looking into whether quantum could help it develop medicines that would work effectively in smaller doses, with fewer side effects and be more cost effective to produce.
Moderna makes medicine by producing mRNA molecules that teach the body how to make a specific protein. Those proteins then help the immune system target certain diseases.
But for each given mRNA molecule it's looking to create, there's a countless number of possible combinations of nucleotide building blocks and sequences, according to Wade Davis, head of Digital for Business at Moderna. How many combinations exactly? For the Covid-19 vaccine there were 10 to the power of 623 different options just for a fragment of an mRNA molecule, Davis said.
So it's virtually impossible to brute force calculate what an optimal nucleotide sequence would be, he said. 'All computers currently existing today going for a trillion years couldn't produce that result.'
But it's a problem Moderna is investigating with early tests on IBM's small-scale quantum computer, and results are promising, Davis said.
More affordable insurance
Allstate CEO Tom Wilson said quantum computing could help his company insure more properties at better prices. Allstate already has digital images of nearly every roof in America, and quantum could simulate the impact of certain weather on each specific property over a period of years or decades, offering much more specific prices, he said.
Today's pricing models are simpler and don't take into account every possible risk factor, the company said. But Quantum could be poised to help.
'It would just run billions of simulations,' he said. 'Quantum computing could help us get the right price for every house…And that's impossible to do with today's algorithms.'
More sustainable food production
Startup PsiQuantum said it was investigating whether quantum computing could help find more energy-efficient methods for producing nitrogen fertilizer, a critical component in the world's food production.
Traditionally, producing nitrogen-based fertilizer has required huge amounts of heat and energy, said PsiQuantum CEO and co-founder Jeremy O'Brien. Nature has a more efficient way of making it — one that requires less heat and uses an enzyme called nitrogenase.
'We cannot simulate even a small part of that enzyme on any conventional computer that we have, nor on any conventional computer that we could ever build,' O'Brien said.
Now PsiQuantum is building the quantum algorithms that could ultimately reverse engineer that enzyme. The underlying goal, he said, is simple: feeding the world.
And…some big risks
Quantum computers also have the potential to break the cryptography we use today to secure our data. Businesses are now working to implement new quantum-safe encryption standards, at the guidance of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Still a threat known as 'harvest now, decrypt later,' means bad actors could already be collecting encrypted data they plan to decrypt at a later point once quantum computers become capable. According to former Director of Naval Intelligence Matthew Kohler, there's not a whole lot we can do about that. Kohler is now a senior counselor at consulting firm the Cohen Group.
'The horse is really literally out of the barn on this,' he said.
'Quantum has so often been spoken about as something that was always coming in the next five or 10 years,' Kohler said. 'The conversations are changing dramatically because it's now no longer 10 years down the road. It's much closer.'
Write to Isabelle Bousquette at [e-mail]