Ariel Zilber
The decades-long quest to create a practical quantum computer is accelerating as major tech companies say they are closing in on designs that could scale from small lab experiments to full working systems within just a few years.
IBM laid out a detailed plan for a large-scale machine in June, filling in gaps from earlier concepts and declaring it was on track to build one by the end of the decade.
“It doesn’t feel like a dream anymore,” Jay Gambetta, head of IBM’s quantum initiative, told Financial Times.
IBM’s Quantum System Two, part of its push to build a million-qubit machine by the end of the decade.AFP via Getty Images
“I really do feel like we’ve cracked the code and we’ll be able to build this machine by the end of the decade.”
Google, which cleared one of the toughest technical obstacles late last year, says it is also confident it can produce an industrial-scale system within that time frame, while Amazon Web Services cautions that it could still take 15 to 30 years before such machines are truly useful.
Quantum computing is a new kind of computing that doesn’t just think in 0s and 1s like today’s computers.
Instead, it uses qubits — tiny quantum bits — that can be 0, 1, or both at the same time.
This lets quantum computers explore many possibilities at once and find answers to certain complex problems much faster than normal computers.
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