Quantum computing opens horizons in data processing

These include giants that need no further introduction, such as Amazon, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft; prestigious academic institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Oxford; and laboratories such as Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Global research push

While these companies, institutions, and laboratories are based in the United States, there is significant research in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Russia.

The United Kingdom has launched a quantum computing programme. Two years ago, India established the National Quantum Technologies and Applications Mission.

US market research firm Markets N Research estimates that the quantum computing market was worth about $395 million in 2021 and is likely to expand to more than $5 billion by 2030 according to Bloomberg.

US market research firm TechTarget also has not ruled out that the technology could become "disruptive" in computing once it matures, as startups conducting research are proliferating around the world, but most experts predict that it will be years before quantum computing bears practical fruit.

The first quantum computer dates to 2011 and is produced by D-Wave Systems, and IBM released its version, Quantum System One, in 2019 and followed it with the largest quantum computer to date, the Osprey, in November 2022.

While companies are still reluctant to build or own a quantum computer, companies like Amazon and Microsoft provide online quantum computing services. The reason for the hesitation is the cost: A 50-qubit quantum computer can cost up to $10 million. 

Quantum computers still have classic computers that operate and instruct them. They require a lot of power to operate and cool down.

Superior capabilities

Quantum computers are surprisingly fast compared to their classical counterparts (such as in financial data analysis), capable of processing complex operations (such as in performing many complex calculations at the same time), running complex simulations (such as in simulating molecules), and promising to make quantum leaps in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

But still there are problems: any disruption in the system could cancel the whole process, qubits still fall short of automatic error correction unlike bits, and output data are still vulnerable to corruption upon receipt – but new technologies are beginning to address the latter problem.

Other new technologies resulting from extensive research in recent years are solving problems such as the security of quantum computers and the storage of information resulting from them. Like any emerging technology, quantum computing still offers both opportunities and risks, but research can solve problems.

Quantum computers are not a potential alternative to their classical counterparts, with the former's developers calling them an additional way to address complex issues that classical computers cannot or take too long to address.

As we enter the era of so-called big data where the data we must store grows, it is widely expected that quantum computers will be able to solve seemingly intractable problems due to the magnitude of the data entered.

Quantum computing is also of great importance in chemical and biological engineering, which involves the discovery and manipulation of molecules, and this involves motion and interaction at the level of particles smaller than atoms.

The quest to understand what is happening on such a tiny level is what prompted the American physicist Richard Feynman, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with compatriot Julian Schwinger and Japanese Shinichiro Tomonaga in 1965 for their research in quantum physics, to come up with the idea of creating a quantum computer capable of simulating that movement and interaction.

The new technology is also important in cryptography, which many attribute its establishment to the Book of Cryptographic Messages by Al-Khalil bin Ahmed Al-Farahidi in the 8th century, as cryptography combines words, as Al-Farahidi suggested, but quantum computing may make decryption much easier compared to classical computers.

New areas in artificial intelligence

Quantum computing will open new areas in artificial intelligence, which is required to process a huge amount of data to develop, so its development will be faster and more efficient with a computer that supports and accelerates this processing.

In financial services, companies that specialise in simulations that enable prediction of price trends for certain financial products are striving to predict price trends, and quantum computing promises to facilitate and improve this; as well as the speed of its data processing, it can receive much larger data, which enhances the likelihood that simulations will hit expectations.

The same is true of the big data generated by manufacturing processes — especially the manufacture of microchips — which are shrinking in size and carrying an increasing amount of data, while requiring complex and numerous steps to manufacture.

Read more: How microchips are reshaping geopolitics

The quantum computer consists of a device and software, like its classical counterpart, and the device includes a quantum data plane that is the core of the computer and includes qubits and structures necessary to maintain them, a control and measurement plane that converts digital signals into analogue signals that work on qubits in the quantum data plane, and quantum software that applies specific quantum algorithms to apply logical quantum operations to qubits.

Quantum computers are expected to have different applications in different sectors, but it is difficult to imagine what the world will be like when this new technology comes to fruition.

However, when we recall how classical computers changed the world, it is no exaggeration to say that quantum computers will revolutionise it, especially since researchers in the field predict that these computers will be able to perform millions of calculations at the same time.

It will certainly influence the way we create new drugs and substances, protect our data, explore space, and predict weather and climate change. 

Questions and challenges

While quantum computing is likely to boost most, if not all, economic sectors, there are social question marks about justice; equity; inclusion; responsibility in the areas of environment, society, governance; and human rights.

Will it require checks and balances to ensure these aspects? The new technology also promises unprecedented cyber defences but also threatens to unlock new cyber hacking capabilities.

Quantum computing promises to develop voting and crisis and resource management, and to strengthen government programmes that seek to provide digital identities for citizens, covering their various rights and duties (voting rights and tax payment duties) in one document.

As research into quantum computing continues and accelerates, it may be time to anticipate the maturity of this technology by looking for improvements and problems that will arise through discussions among various stakeholders, such as scientists, policymakers, economic leaders, civil society organisations, and public opinion.

Futurists and globalists hope that quantum computers will be able to achieve the UN sustainable development goals by 2030 and zero carbon emission targets by 2050.

-Abdel-Rahman Ayas is a writer based in Lebanon that specialises in economic affairs