Despite its ongoing advances, quantum computing has been unable to overcome the perception that it is still ten years from becoming practical. Researchers at Google claim that the technology is closer to commercial viability now than many people believe. Hartmut Neven is the head of Google’s Quantum AI Division. He told Reuters last week. Neven’s predictions are in direct contradiction to those of Jensen Huang (CEO of Nvidia), who earlier this summer shattered quantum computing stocks by claiming that they were at least 20 years away.
“If you said 15 years for very useful quantum computers that would probably be on the early side,” Huang said. “If you said 30, it’s probably on the late side. If you picked 20, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it.”
Like generative AI, quantum computing has attracted a lot of attention in the past few years. This is due to its potential for achieving computational power that is far beyond conventional computers, and the fear that it could eventually run a zipper through the best encryption algorithms.
Despite all the hype, these systems have not yet been realized. Many quantum vendors have instead focused on narrower applications such as chemistry, route optimization and logistics, financial risk management, and other areas.
Google and others are aiming to accelerate drug discovery and materials science with quantum systems in the next few years.
One challenge facing quantum applications to date is that as the number qubits increases so does the amount of errors that must be corrected.
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Google is grappling with this challenge and late in 2024 announced a brand new quantum computing chip that promises to reduce error rates.
Willow was a chip that featured between 72 and 95 physical qubits, arranged in two-dimensional arrays, to create logical qubits that could correct errors before they muddied the results. It’s important to note that using multiple physical quantum bits to achieve fault tolerance is not a new concept. Google, however, says that it has achieved exponentially lower error rates with increasing computational power and the number of quantum bits.
Google’s not the only company that is optimistic about quantum despite the continued skepticism surrounding the technology’s viability in the near future. D-Wave, a Quantum Computing vendor, argued [PDF] following Huang’s comments made at CES last week that its technology was already being used commercially. Intel, which is still facing financial setbacks and technological setbacks ( ), is still holding on to the belief that their quantum computing investments will eventually pay off.
According to reports, the company haspartnered with Japan’s Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Institute (AIST) to develop a quantum computer of the next generation that will be available to both foreign and domestic universities.
This is the latest collaboration for AIST. It is also working with IBM on a 10,000-qubit supercomputer. (r)
