Simon Benjamin is the co-founder of Quantum Motion and Professor of Quantum Technologies at Oxford. Here he argues against precedent FT Alphaville article He said quantum computing was a classic bubble.
Quantum computing is a rapidly growing and bloated industry. But the suggestions that purely Hype - and when bubble burst Nothing of value will be left for us - it is a misconception and a failure to understand where we are and where we will end up.
First a disclaimer: I am far from an objective spectator. I’m a professor of quantum technologies in the Oxford Department of Materials, and co-founder of Quantum Motion in London and Oxford, and for two decades I’ve worked on how to build a quantum computer.
There are many quantum computing companies out there today, but they generally aren’t making any money yet. But it is clear that these companies are now in R&D mode. for example, wear the sleeve, among the biggest new players who have raised more than $665 million, does not engage commercially at all. It simply tells investors that it will take some time. will. I think it may be the end of the decade before we have truly impressive quantum computers.
in some areas Previous FT Alphaville article By Nikita Guryanov About the “quantum computing bubble” True and False (quantum pun intended). We know that many important things will not go faster with a quantum computer. For example, the task of rendering graphics consists of a large number of easy individual calculations - and the transition to quantum will not help.
And not all businesses will benefit from quantum computers, at least at first. The first impact will be in areas related to materials science (including energy materials), chemistry or optimization (possibly extending to logistics/transportation). Even in these sectors, companies need to be involved only if they want to be part of the enabling technology rather than being a user. Others can relax despite calls to be “quantum ready” - they won’t miss the quantum bus, because the bus is still under construction.
But to indicate that there is a will Start That they are high-value applications, and that quantum computers will never repay their investment in research and development, is wrong. for evidence, Guryanov’s article It looks at two areas: cracking codes, and accelerating discovery in chemistry and drug design.
It is well known that shore algorithm It gives an “exponential quantum advantage” - the strongest level of advantage where the practically impossible task of cracking encryption suddenly becomes easy. The article objects that though, there is little commercial value because alternative tokens will be adopted. We should certainly hope this is true - I’d rather not see the world lose its ability to share data securely, given that this is the enabler of all online finance and online commerce, and is essential to modern society. And how would it be ethical to sell access to a codebreaker anyway?
Fortunately, the crypto community is already development “Quantum Safe” codes. But for investors, the importance of Shore’s algorithm was not in cracking trade codes. It is we can prove that quantum computers will be able to do something that is practically impossible conventionally, and thus prove that they can be amazing and devastating machines.
In chemistry, criticism refers to very recent Prepress by more than a dozen reputable authors. This paper examines whether there is evidence to date of an exponential quantum advantage—that is, the strongest possible feature—for a given task: assessing the “ground state energy” of a molecule. The authors concluded that no such evidence exists yet.
But they say nothing of the other levels of merit nor in fact of the other tasks of great importance to chemists. For example, h note who - which “We can’t conclude anything about it [quantum dynamics for chemical systems] based on this work.” Thus, unlike the article, the paper does no fatal wound to quantum computers as revolutionary tools in chemistry. It just keeps the community honest.
Of course, hundreds of research papers actually identify and explore prospects for quantitative advantage in areas ranging from optimization (fundamental to challenges in logistics and portfolio management), all the way to unlocking the dynamics of complex systems in the natural and technological worlds. Are all these ideas wrong and ultimately unable to provide value? Almost certainly not.
So is there any elephant in the room that the nascent quantum computing industry is worried about? In fact there. The issue is size.
Today’s typical quantum machines are about the size of a wardrobe (or, at worst, a whole bunch of fancy bedroom furniture). But it does not contain a lot of qubit This is the CPU for quantum computers: maybe 100, usually less. We will need millions. This is worrying. Whichever of the groundbreaking approaches you’re considering — superconducting qubits, ionic traps, or pure photonics — scaling up is likely to result in a single quantum computer occupying the floor of a large building, if not the entire building. This is just one quantum computer with one user at a time.
Building-size quantum computers will, of course, still be impressive — perhaps comparable to $36 billion today HPC sector. But the high cost of these systems will limit their market, and the benefits they can bring. There are not many options to reduce it. For me, the natural course is to change existing silicon chips to host qubits instead of qubits, but on the same tiny scale. Certainly some solutions to the problem of scale are needed if quantum computers are to reach their full revolutionary potential.
It’s fair to admit that there is a disconnect between popular ideas about what quantum computers are, and the reality of what they will be. But it is very wrong to assert that there is seldom in this field more than hype. Advances toward quantum computers are real, and the path to commercially important machines is clear with clear milestones. In this respect, quantum computing is like any other disruptive technology.
In addition to all of this, there’s another concern I’ve heard: that efforts to build quantum computers will fail due to physics that has yet to be discovered. This possibility seems remote, but it cannot be ruled out. However, revealing a deeper truth behind quantum theory, which has withstood the scrutiny of thousands of experiments for a century, may be no less exciting than quantum computers themselves!