Название: Quantum Computing: How It Works and How It Could Change the World
Автор: Amit Katwala
Издательство: Random House Business
Год: 2021
Страниц: 160
Язык: английский
Формат: epub
Размер: 10.1 MB

Quantum computing has been hailed as a technological game-changer. But what precisely is it and what is its true potential?

In this superbly insightful, one-stop guide WIRED author Amit Katwala tells you everything you need to know about the next computer revolution. He explains the highly complex science that lies behind it. He describes the competing efforts of the likes of Google, Microsoft and Chinese companies Tencent and Alibaba to create a viable quantum computer, and the different routes they have taken to meet the immense technical challenges involved. He considers the technology's potential application in spheres as diverse as medicine, cyber security and clean energy. And he addresses the fundamental question: how close are we to seeing quantum computers become a widespread reality.

Quantum computers have vast potential. They could eventually revolutionise everything from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the development of new drugs. A working quantum computer could help create powerful new materials, turbocharge the fight against climate change and completely upend the cryptography that keeps our secrets safe. It would, as Discover magazine put it in the early days of research, be ‘less a machine than a force of nature’.

If their potential can be fully realised, these devices won’t simply be more powerful versions of our existing computers. They work in a completely different way, which could enable them to do seemingly impossible things. Because their strengths are so alien to the way most of us perceive the universe, it can be difficult to explain them without resorting to slightly fuzzy analogies. But effectively, quantum computers could unlock a new set of abilities based on the new, deeper understanding of the universe that physicists have developed over the last century.