Is Computing Headed for Quantum Supremacy?

"Unlike a bit, which is a simple state machine, a qubit is made from a part of an atom, a photon, an electron, whatever. It can be in any of those states at the same time. The physics are, you got this thing that is constantly spinning that can represent more than one state or multiple states," he says. "Because of quantum entanglement, you have the ability to know what one qubit is set to by checking the other qubit. So in other words, instead of having to go through and measure everything in the system, we often only have to measure parts of the system to get the same results."

"It [starts with] Quantum 101: How does quantum technology work? Into what are the possibilities? How qubits work, how it creates this exponential scale in the computing power ..."

To put it very simply, it promises a massive leap forward in the speed and power of computing. Qubits increase in power exponentially when put together, and a (as-yet unrealized) 100-qubit computer would be more powerful than any existing supercomputer.

Here are some of the examples whurley wrote about in one of his superposition.com posts:

"For example, quantum computers can debug millions of lines of software code in seconds, making reliable aircraft, cars, MRI scanners, etc. more efficient to produce. Scientists are eager to use quantum computers to analyze microbes so they can create new vaccines, which quantum computers could then be used to optimize to reduce unwanted side effects. Some scientists believe that quantum computers are essential for achieving breakthrough preventative and treatments protocols for healthcare … Volkswagen is working on a quantum computing platform capable of alerting drivers to traffic jams, 45 minutes before they occur."

This is not to mention its ability to push artificial intelligence forward. "Your brain works with a lot of gray areas, right? And a computer works in ones and zeros," says whurley. "So we try to model your brain with this very inorganic mechanical system, whereas the quantum computer can spin up and spin down and we can represent a one or a zero or states in between and there's a lot more probability. This obviously would make more sense to do an AI in. And there's a lot of people that think that. Google's invested a lot of money with NASA to build a quantum AI research center."

Currently whurley is serving as chair of the IEEE Standards Quantum Computing Working Group, which is charged with establishing definitions for the field, which up until now has lacked uniform terms. "We're trying to build a nomenclature so that everybody can speak the same language. There's no performance benchmark that's standardized," he says. Once those are established, it will become easier to measure progress. "The ruler probably won't be correct scientifically, but everybody will be measured by the same ruler," he says.

Just within the last month, Intel fabricated a 17-qubit superconducting chip for testing, and IBM simulated a 56-qubit quantum computer. The latter has the interesting effect of both pushing forward quantum computing and raising the bar for quantum supremacy, which is the point at which a quantum computer can do something literally impossible by conventional computing means—the "Impossibilities" of whurley's book title.

One certainty, at least, is that he'll be urging everyone to pay attention. Possibly with a surprise announcement in March. "I'm gonna potentially [have] an actual super-inspirational example of how I'm gonna try to use it," says whurley. "It's a cool, cool project that I can't say anything about yet!"

whurley was a 2018 SXSW Conference Keynote (Convergence). Watch the entire thing below.