AI (Artificial intelligence) is going to change jobs in a pretty dramatic way,” said Bill Gates, co-founder of software technology giant Microsoft and now a global philanthropist, in a September 19 interview with Ari Melber at MSNBC. “It will make people [be] more productive and [willing] to help out and yes, this is a world-changing set of advances.”
Who can take those words lightly, coming from the man who practically changed the world of computing, particularly in the area of personal computers? Indeed artificial intelligence is upon us. “It will allow doctors to do less paperwork, it will help teachers with homework, you name a job, lawyer, architect, it will find information for you more quickly and hopefully, get rid of the dull parts of the work,” Gates said in the same interview, as he described OpenAI’s ChatGPT, probably the most popular AI platform in the consumer end.
Gates further emphasized the current position of AI as a productivity tool, saying “programmers are already having AI to suggest the codes, help them debug things.”
AI may be the buzzword today but it, in itself, is not the end-all in the fast and continuing evolution of computing. We have heard about quantum computing, the area of computer science that uses the principles of quantum theory, which explains the behavior of energy and materials at the atomic and subatomic levels. Although functional quantum computers exist and are said to even be capable of doing some work, as of 2022, these machines are far from fully operational.
Although the technology of quantum computing is still about a decade or less away, scientists
and researchers are already hoping that quantum computers will take artificial intelligence
a big step forward. IMAGE FROM FREEPIK
The purpose of quantum computing is to “revolutionize computation by making certain types of classically intractable problems solvable.” Theoretically, computers in the quantum realm are incredibly fast and effective, and said to perform calculations “in a few seconds for which today’s supercomputers would need decades or even millennia” to calculate. Able to handle complex calculations easily, these machines “are built based on quantum principles that go beyond classical physics.” Yet as of this writing, there’s still no quantum computer “sophisticated enough to carry out calculations that a classical computer can’t.” Nonetheless, great progress is underway according to researchers.
At this point, we, of course, can’t ignore the fact that AI and quantum computing will thread the same path. To many technology research and development houses, that is certainly the road they want to go through. Scientists and researchers are already hoping “that quantum computers will take artificial intelligences a big step forward,” where they believe these could then “safely and reliably take over tasks such as data evaluation or forecasting in the future.”
Although the technology of quantum computing is still about a decade or less away, business enterprises are already taking notes. Like with any new and probably complex technology, adopters and vendors “often face significant scientific and technical challenges over in bringing increasingly fault tolerant quantum computers to the market that show a meaningful advantage over classical computers for commercially relevant applications” as expressed in a marketing survey by Omdia, a London-based analysis and consultancy firm that specializes in global coverage of telecommunications, media and technology.
As technologies advance to continue the promise of taking advantage of the unique properties of quantum mechanics, IBM, for its part, is undeterred in pushing quantum technology in computing, having made significant breakthroughs over the years. In late 2022, IBM announced new breakthrough advancements in quantum hardware and software, outlining the company’s pioneering vision for quantum-centric supercomputing.
“The new 433 qubit ‘Osprey’ processor brings us a step closer to the point where quantum computers will be used to tackle previously unsolvable problems,” said Dr. Darío Gil, senior vice president, IBM and director of research. “We are continuously scaling up and advancing our quantum technology across hardware, software and classical integration to meet the biggest challenges of our time, in conjunction with our partners and clients worldwide. This work will prove foundational for the coming era of quantum-centric supercomputing.”
A qubit, short for quantum bit, is “the basic unit of information in quantum computing and counterpart to the bit (binary digit) in classical computing. A qubit plays a similar role as a bit, in terms of storing information, but it behaves much differently because of the quantum properties on which it’s based.”
IBM’s Osprey has the largest qubit count of any IBM quantum processor, more than tripling the 127 qubits on the earlier Eagle processor that the company unveiled in 2021. This latest processor has the potential to “run complex quantum computations well beyond the computational capability of any classical computer.”
As IBM Quantum systems scale up towards the goal of 4,000+ qubits by 2025 and beyond, the tech giant also stated that it would “go beyond the current capabilities of existing physical electronics.”
Jay Gambetta, IBM fellow and vice president of of IBM Quantum said: “Our breakthroughs define the next wave in quantum, which we call quantum-centric supercomputing, where modularity, communication, and middleware will contribute to enhanced scaling computation capacity, and integration of quantum and classical workflows.”
Moving forward, researchers and analysts have already expressed the potential benefits of quantum computing to include “making smarter investment decisions, developing drugs and vaccines faster and revolutionizing transportation.” But they have also warned of immediate but hopefully short-lived dangers. One is in the field of cryptography, where quantum computers, because of their sheer power and speeds, could easily break encryption in a matter of seconds.
Nevertheless, there is no stopping the great quantum leap. Even in its early stages, the quantum computing market could already be worth up to $5 billion by 2025, driven by competition between the United States and China, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. And according to a research report published by Spherical Insights & Consulting, the worldwide quantum computing market size is expected to reach a whopping $143.44 billion by 2032.
When asked by Melber about the future of technology, Gates simply said: [It will be] amazing, profound and potentially positive.”
