A fundamental change in computing could be much closer than previously thought. Microsoft’s new chip hints that quantum computing is just years, not decades away. And Google's recently announced Willow chip is fueling exciting visions of a real multiverse.
Microsoft revealed its Majorana 1 chip after what it called taking a step back to invent the transistor for the quantum age. The new chip leverages what is said (by Microsoft) to be the world’s first topoconductor, able to produce more reliable and scalable qubits that power quantum computers.
The Majorana 1 can fit a million qubits on a single chip. This should open up opportunities for solving industrial-scale problems in a matter of years and not decades.
“Whatever you’re doing in the quantum space needs to have a path to a million qubits. If it doesn’t, you’re going to hit a wall before you get to the scale at which you can solve the really important problems that motivate us,” Chetan Nayak, a Microsoft technical fellow, said.
In December, another breakthrough piece of information traveled the world – Google unveiled a 105-qubit superconducting processor chip named Willow. Google scientists, who praised major achievements in error correction and performance, said it paved the way to useful and large-scale quantum computers.
And to fuel our imaginations, Google then hinted at the possibility of the multiverse. “It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse,” Google said.
These two major achievements in error correction and performance "pave the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer,” said Hartmut Neven, Founder and Lead of Google Quantum AI.
Just like AI for many decades, quantum computers seem to be on the margins of the public discourse. ChatGPT didn’t just happen. It's just that we were ignorant to scientific research until it threatened the job market and promised better profits for corporations.
Is something similar going to happen with quantum computers? The groundwork for the Q-day is happening with post-quantum cryptography algorithms being introduced, and many experts are raising alarm bells about data safety.
Just after the Willow was unveiled, I talked to Heather Dawe, chief data scientist at a digital tech company UST, about what recent breakthroughs could mean for us and where AI fits in all of this.
We started with the most-boggling concept of them all, of course, the potential existence of the multiverse. Is it possible that in another universe, the dinosaurs aren’t extinct?
“Maybe humans aren't there,” Dawe pointed out.
But it’s not only big events that might be different in parallel universes. It’s also small things like you leaving for work today and not.
“There’s just infinitely many (scenarios),” Dawe said.
Of course, what matters the most in this discussion is how quantum computing can make our world a better place to live. Because it will also bring its share of problems. And big ones, at that.
“Fundamentally, what quantum computing will do well and we'll notice is make things exponentially faster. Things like cancer, wider drug research, genetics, all kinds of things,” Dawe said.
When Willow was announced, Google said that it was able to do a computation that would take supercomputers about 10 septillion years (1025 ) to solve in mere five minutes.
So we could definitely expect breakthroughs in science, medicine, climate change, and pretty much everywhere else.
But isn’t this just what Sam Altman promised with AI?
“Although it will happen incrementally, astounding triumphs – fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics – will eventually become commonplace. With nearly-limitless intelligence and abundant energy – the ability to generate great ideas, and the ability to make them happen – we can do quite a lot,” Altman said.
So, if we combine the AI capabilities with the promise of quantum computing, what happens next? Together with big promises to solve some of the most complex world problems, it also unleashes a whole array of new ones.
Look at the AI. All the positive news aside, AI has somewhat disrupted the labor market, made us worry about the future of our professions, and became a powerful tool in criminals’ arsenal, among other things.
“AI can be used in really malicious ways. That will be true of quantum,” Dawe said.
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