The columnist might be a big fan of technology but, sometimes, he thinks it might be nice if things slowed down a little bit. Or is that age making itself known?
Google made big news this week with it’s new quantum computing chip, Willow.
Willow is capable of performing computations in under five minutes that would take a supercomputer 10 septillion years to do. To put that in perspective, our universe is 13.8 billion years old (as far as we know). Which means 10 septillion years is vastly longer than the age of the universe. I have no idea what calculations Google gave it’s quantum chip but having maths that would take the entire time of existence to do done in five minutes seems like a win.
In fact, that seems kind of game changing. Basically, all cryptography will be made redundant. All your passwords will be useless, so security will have to change. But it’s not just that. Think about artificial intelligence (AI), about problem solving – quantum computing will change everything
So when is all this going to happen?
Global management consulting firm Mckinsey estimates that about 5,000 quantum computers will be operational by 2030. But that hardware and software to solve the most complex problems won’t be ready until after 2035. And how about quantum computers for the public? There is no timeline on that.
What makes quantum computing so powerful?
There are several factors. Superposition is one. While in classical computing a bit represents either a 1 or a 0, quantum bits, or qubits, can exist as both 1 or 0 simultaneously. This means quantum computers can process a giant number of possibilities concurrently.
Then there is entanglement. Which gets quite spooky. According to the MIT Technology Review site, “Researchers can generate pairs of qubits that are ‘entangled’, which means the two members of a pair exist in a single quantum state. Changing the state of one of the qubits will instantaneously change the state of the other one in a predictable way. This happens even if they are separated by very long distances”.
No one really knows why this happens, but it does, and it means qubits are more efficiently correlated than classic bits are.
Quantum interference means quantum algorithms are using interference patterns to amplify correct solutions and cancel incorrect ones.
And finally, in what could be the weirdest part of quantum computing, is the idea of parallelism. This means a quantum computer can evaluate multiple inputs at once, performing calculations in parallel, making quantum computing more efficient than classical computing.
The weird part is that some experts suggest that because of quantum computing leveraging things like superposition and entanglement, that parallelism occurs because this processing is happening simultaneously across numerous parallel realities.
Yep. Parallel realities. Qubits know what other qubits are valued at even if they are infinitely far away. Quantum computing is pretty crazy.
But beyond the idea that quantum computing is insanely hard to understand, there are some real physical world limitations. For instance qubits need extreme cold to function. How cold is extreme cold? How about -272°C?
That is pretty extreme.
Right now AI and its usage of data centres is projected to grow electrical usage by doubling electricity demand by 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. According to McKinsey, data centre electricity usage in the United States will account for 11.7% of total US power demand by 2030.
While data centres need cooling, imagine how much energy needs to be expended to keep things at -272°C.
It’s a lot.
It would appear that though Google has had a breakthrough with it’s Willow chip, quantum computing isn’t close to being ready for regular use. And I am a little happy about that.
At the risk of once again being an old man shouting at clouds, I am just getting used to AI and I do not think any of us are totally ready for how much AI will change our lives in the near future. I think it is an exciting future but things are going to get disrupted at a scale that is completely unknowable.
It feels like quantum computing is another paradigm-shifting technology that, when it is introduced, will once again change our lives.
I’m fine with moving ahead with AI and seeing where that takes us, but then, it would appear that just when we are getting used to that, quantum computing will sweep in and change life as we know it once again.
That sounds pretty daunting – but I’ll submit that this scenario sounds less daunting than both things happening at once. I am a big fan of tech, but sometimes I do think it’d be nice if things slowed down a bit.
But once again, maybe that’s just the old man in me.
Avid writer Jason Godfrey – a model who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries and lifestyle programming. Write to him at lifestyle@thestar.com.my and follow him on Instagram @bigsmilenoteeth and facebook.com/bigsmilenoteeth. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.
