In the previous chapter, we took a look at a fascinating area of emergence in technology - synthetic biology. It’s an exciting domain for future development and suggests capabilities that even science fiction writers may have struggled to get their heads around.
In this chapter, we’ll take a look at quantum computing, following the same steps we did in the previous chapter.
Get Familiar With Quantum Computing
The idea of quantum computing was first talked about in the 1980s. But it has taken four decades to reach the point where we can realistically use quantum computers. So, very much an emerging technology at the time of writing!
But what is quantum computing?
Traditional computing starts with the idea of bits like switches - either “on” or “off.” Building up massive collections of these bits allows computers to tackle highly complex computations by increasing the speed with which combinations of 1s and 0s come together. Scale is achieved by creating faster and faster ways of interpreting those on/off switches.
There comes a point, even with today’s supercomputers, when the computational power available is not up to processing the information quickly enough to produce an answer.
That’s where quantum computing (QC) becomes interesting and valuable. At its very heart, QC takes a different approach. Instead of running through each possible combination of on/off switches in sequence, it represents the world in terms of uncertainty.
Discover the Basic Terms of Quantum Computing
A quantum is the smallest discrete unit of physical property - atomic or subatomic particles such as electrons, neutrinos, and photons.
A qubit is the basic unit of information in QC. They are comparable to bits in traditional computing but with a crucial difference: where a bit can either be “on” or “off,” qubits can represent “a superposition of all possible states.”
Superposition is the ability of a quantum system to be in multiple states simultaneously until it is measured.
This idea was famously captured in 1935 by Erwin Schrödinger’s thought experiment involving a cat, a box, and a device that had a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour. The question he asked was what state the cat was in immediately before the opening of the box. In quantum physics, the cat is both alive and dead at that moment- it is “a blur of probability.” - source TEDEd
Entanglement describes the idea of quantum particles correlating their measurement results with each other, just like atoms sharing electrons in the physical world. This means that, in contrast with the on/off switches in traditional computing, the power of quantum computing expands exponentially as the number of qubits grows.
Apply Your Framework of Analysis to QC
Applying the three-point framework to analyze how quantum computing sits in terms of investment, maturity, and application:
Investment - Considerable funding has been made available at a governmental level in the U.S. ($1.2 billion), EU ($1 billion), and China ($10 billion) throughout the 2020s. In addition to the anticipated commercial impact, quantum investment is considered a national (and international) security matter. It is estimated that at the end of 2021, VC investment was on track to match this level of expenditure globally.
Maturity - We’re just at the start of the journey for what QC can achieve. Major tech players in the sector say there is “still a lot of work to do.” But we are beginning to see the popularization of QC in the offerings of major on-demand services, such as Azure, AWS, IBM, and Google, not to mention new ventures such as D-Wave.
Application - McKinsey published a report in early 2020 that predicted that QC will unlock an annual value of as much as $1 trillion by 2035 (i.e., in the turnover generated by companies who use these technologies. This list, from a 2022 article on Built-In, suggests ten key areas of application we should think of first:
Artificial intelligence
Better batteries
Cleaner fertilization
Cybersecurity
Drug development
Electronic materials discovery
Financial modeling
Solar capture
Traffic optimization
Weather forecasting and climate change
Build a Use Case for Quantum Computing
Quantum computing (QC) takes a fundamentally different approach to information technology. Instead of using the brute force of ever faster calculations of a series of on/off binary switches (or bits), QC uses quantum theory to model all possible answers simultaneously, allowing for some types of computation to be performed dramatically faster.
The important phrase to think about here is “some types of computation.” In other words, QC is not simply a replacement to swap in, displacing all types of traditional computing models - it is something for which you need a clear use case, once again.
Let’s Recap!
QC (quantum computing) is a radical reshaping of how computers work based on using qubits instead of bits.
Qubits can model all possible states that might answer a question rather than just a yes/no answer.
QC development is regarded as both an economic necessity and a question of national (and international) security.
In considering both SynBio and QC, you can use the tools and frameworks you’ve learned throughout this course to examine, test, and refine your ideas for possible applications - for use cases - in using these emerging technologies.
After this chapter, you’ve explored how to apply the techniques of this course to two more emerging technology fields - the potential value to be created. In the next chapter, we’ll look at some challenges or problems that emerging technology might present and how to deal with those challenges!
