Quantum Computing: Pros and cons of quantum computing

Hamas Sohail — Sat, 21 Sep 2019 14:27:28 +0000

Estimated Read Time: 4 mins

Quantum Computing: Do we really need it? If we do so, what are the pros and cons of quantum computer?.For sure we are going to see a fully functional quantum computer soon. Today we are going to cover all information about quantum computers. So let’s start with a short introduction.

Introduction to Quantum computing

The simple answer to above question is, even the most powerful computers available are not powerful enough to solve the complex tasks like breaking long encryption codes or providing precise weather patterns.
But everything doesn’t come with all the advantages and no disadvantage, there are many disadvantages of quantum computing, which we will cover in this post.

Discovery of atom in the early 20th century gave birth to another important field known as quantum physics. It turns out atoms don’t follow the traditional rules of physics. Quantum particles can move forward or backward in time and even exist in two places at once and can “teleport”.

It aims to use these strange behaviours to their advantage.

It is very important for us to know its advantages and disadvantages for our own benefit.

Quantum Computing, still an emerging technology, is one of the most appealing things researchers, organizations, and governments have been working on in this century so far. The race to building the first fully-functional quantum computer (also called supercomputer) is on.

With its remarkable computational power, quantum computers will most likely be cloud based services soon rather than on-premise machines. IBM is offering cloud-based quantum computing services meanwhile.

Google announced it has a quantum computer that is 100 million times faster than any classical computer in its lab.

The first quantum computer is going to have a significant lead over the others. In 2020, the ability to achieve supercomputer supremacy will strengthen. As a consequence, the last mile in the race will remain mostly private, for obvious reasons.

Major market player in Quantum computing:

D-Wave Systems Inc.
IBM Corporation
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Intel Corporation
Anyon Systems Inc.
Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited

Major advantages of Quantum computing

The main advantage of quantum computing is it can perform any task faster as compared to a classical computer. Because atoms move faster in a quantum computer than a classical computer.
In quantum computing qubit is the conventional superposition state and so there is an advantage of exponential speedup which is resulted by handle number of calculations.
The other advantage of quantum computing is it can easily perform classical algorithm calculations and quantum algorithms which are not easy to develop. The best example for a quantum algorithm is the quantum factorization algorithm created by Peter Shor of AT&T Bell laboratories.
Quantum computer will speed up the development of drugs which will improve the chemical industry and even suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to curb climate change.
Quantum computers can be used to enhance radar stealth technology. The best example would be Peter’s Shor’s algorithm.
Quantum algorithms are believed to help in the creation of new pharmaceuticals.
Quantum computers can be used in cryptography for more secure data encryptions.
Quantum computers can be used to better predict patterns in weather.
Quantum computers can be used in stock markets for detecting problems.
Quantum computers can be used in Mathematical field for better optimizations.
Quantum computers can be used for the Google search engine to show the most relevant searches.

Major Disadvantages of Quantum Computing

The main disadvantage of the quantum computer is its price. Most of the small business may can’t afford such an expensive machine.
The technology required to implement a quantum computer is not yet available. The reason is that electron (Essential element of quantum computing) is damaged as soon as it is affected by the environment.
According to theoretical research with quantum computing every computer on this planet will become vulnerable even nuclear codes can be hacked with quantum computing. What will happen if it gets in the wrong hands?
We Need tons of new Quantum algorithms to reach its full potential. Because without these algorithms a Quantum computer will work only as a classical computer. In short, there will be no advantage to a quantum computer without quantum algorithms
If a result of a computation is not in a base position, the answer is too difficult to understand.
Many companies claim they have built quantum computers including IBM and D-wave etc. Even if they have built a quantum computer, we don’t have enough experience with Quantum computer. For example, D-wave solved sudoku and many other puzzles using a quantum computer, even a classical computer can do that.
Quantum computers need a lot of cooling to work properly. For example, 460 degrees F.

Conclusion

Quantum computing is still in its early stages of development, and many computer scientists believe the technology needed to create a practical quantum computer is years away. Quantum computers must have at least several dozen qubits to be able to solve real-world problems, and thus serve as a viable computing method

According to informit

The current challenge is not to build a full quantum computer right away; instead to move away from the experiments in which we merely observe quantum phenomena to experiments in which we can control these phenomena. Systems in which information obeys the laws of quantum mechanics could far exceed the performance of any conventional computer. Obviously, this mind-boggling level of computing power has enormous commercial, industrial, and scientific applications, but there are some significant technological and conceptual issue to resolve first.

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