The second way that quantum could have an impact on everyday life without
completely taking over computing and the internet, Rivas says, is in
improvements to consumable goods, especially drugs: Quantum computers
have proven adept at building molecular models used in drug development.
Both of these cases and others like them suggest a future in which quantum
physics does not replace the current information technology infrastructure we
have today. Really, the future of quantum is the future of the data center, not
what phones or laptops will look like in 50 years. “Our interest is building the
replacement to the supercomputer,” Rivas says.
Put that way, perhaps there is no quantum bubble about to burst. The
importance of supercomputers is easy to understand today, even if it’s not
always easy to describe exactly what they do. Improving these types of machines
with quantum tech seems easier to justify, whether or not we ever reach
quantum supremacy or invent indestructible photons. Quantum information’s
future could be seen as an analog to Manifest Destiny, the view that the
westward expansion that swept 19th-century America was both defensible
and inevitable.
“It used to take months to travel from New York to California,” Hurley points
out. “And then came the train. Think of trains as classical computers.” More
than 150 years after the Golden Spike marked the completion of the
transcontinental railroad, hardly anyone marvels at trains. “But no matter how
far you go, you eventually reach an ocean,” Hurley says. “So you need air travel.”
That’s quantum computing: a revolutionary technology that could allow us to
cross metaphorical oceans. Even in maturity, it might still rely on classical
computers to perform common tasks, just as the denizens of the suburbs take
airplanes to go on foreign vacations but arrive at the supermarket and the mall
in SUVs on 15-lane roads. If the recent pace of money pouring into quantum
computing research has you itching to buy a quantum-powered iPhone, you’re
probably living in a bubble. But the quantum breakthroughs of the last few
years suggest changes in the not-too-distant future that are both less obvious
and more revolutionary. New vaccines could be born in days instead of years,
and stock trades will settle almost instantly. That makes it worthwhile to spend
a few billion dollars to speed up photons and build giant refrigerators today.
PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION (^) I SUBSCRIBE (^) I NOVEMBER 2020