Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      ‘System offline’ scourge to end, says Schreiber – but industry must pay

      23 June 2025

      Why the spectrum gold rush may soon be over

      23 June 2025

      Tech stability key to getting South Africa off damaging financial grey list

      23 June 2025

      Naspers shifts to an AI-first strategy – and it’s paying off

      23 June 2025

      Letter: South Africa risks missing AI wave while world surges ahead

      23 June 2025
    • World

      Watch | Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

      19 June 2025

      Trump Mobile dials into politics, profit and patriarchy

      17 June 2025

      Samsung plots health data hub to link users and doctors in real time

      17 June 2025

      Beijing’s chip champions blacklisted by Taiwan

      16 June 2025

      China is behind in AI chips – but for how much longer?

      13 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E3: Behind Takealot’s revenue surge

      23 June 2025

      TCS | South Africa’s Sociable wants to make social media social again

      23 June 2025

      TCS+ | AfriGIS’s Helen Hulett on how tech can help resolve South Africa’s water crisis

      18 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E2: South Africa’s digital battlefield

      16 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025
    • Opinion

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Editor's pick » The thrilling future of quantum computing

    The thrilling future of quantum computing

    By The Conversation21 September 2015
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    quantum-computing-image-one-640
    Quantum circuitry. Paul Koenraad/TU Eindhoven

    The one thing everyone knows about quantum mechanics is its legendary weirdness, in which the basic tenets of the world it describes seem alien to the world we live in. Superposition, where things can be in two states simultaneously, a switch both on and off, a cat both dead and alive. Or entanglement, what Einstein called “spooky action-at-distance” in which objects are invisibly linked, even when separated by huge distances.

    But weird or not, quantum theory is approaching a century old and has found many applications in daily life. As John von Neumann once said: “You don’t understand quantum mechanics, you just get used to it.” Much of electronics is based on quantum physics, and the application of quantum theory to computing could open up huge possibilities for the complex calculations and data processing we see today.

    Imagine a computer processor able to harness super-position, to calculate the result of an arbitrarily large number of permutations of a complex problem simultaneously. Imagine how entanglement could be used to allow systems on different sides of the world to be linked and their efforts combined, despite their physical separation. Quantum computing has immense potential, making light work of some of the most difficult tasks, such as simulating the body’s response to drugs, predicting weather patterns or analysing big data sets.

    Such processing possibilities are needed. The first transistors could only just be held in the hand, while today they measure just 14nm — 500 times smaller than a red blood cell. This relentless shrinking, predicted by Intel founder Gordon Moore as Moore’s law, has held true for 50 years, but cannot hold indefinitely. Silicon can only be shrunk so far, and if we are to continue benefiting from the performance gains we have become used to, we need a different approach.

    Quantum fabrication
    Advances in semiconductor fabrication have made it possible to mass-produce quantum-scale semiconductors — electronic circuits that exhibit quantum effects such as super-position and entanglement.

    Replica of the first ever transistor, manufactured at Bell Labs in 1947
    Replica of the first ever transistor, manufactured at Bell Labs in 1947

    The image at the top of this article, captured at the atomic scale, shows a cross-section through one potential candidate for the building blocks of a quantum computer, a semiconductor nano-ring. Electrons trapped in these rings exhibit the strange properties of quantum mechanics, and semiconductor fabrication processes are poised to integrate these elements required to build a quantum computer. While we may be able to construct a quantum computer using structures like these, there are still major challenges involved.

    In a classical computer processor, a huge number of transistors interact conditionally and predictably with one another. But quantum behaviour is highly fragile; for example, under quantum physics, even measuring the state of the system such as checking whether the switch is on or off, actually changes what is being observed. Conducting an orchestra of quantum systems to produce useful output that couldn’t easily by handled by a classical computer is extremely difficult.

    But there have been huge investments: the UK government announced £270m in funding for quantum technologies in 2014, for example, and the likes of Google, Nasa and Lockheed Martin are also working in the field. It’s difficult to predict the pace of progress, but a useful quantum computer could be 10 years away.

    The basic element of quantum computing is known as a qubit, the quantum equivalent to the bits used in traditional computers. To date, scientists have harnessed quantum systems to represent qubits in many different ways, ranging from defects in diamonds, to semiconductor nano-structures or tiny superconducting circuits. Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages, but none yet has met all the requirements for a quantum computer, known as the DiVincenzo Criteria.

    The most impressive progress has come from D-Wave Systems, a firm that has managed to pack hundreds of qubits on to a small chip similar in appearance to a traditional processor.

    Quantum secrets
    The benefits of harnessing quantum technologies aren’t limited to computing, however. Whether or not quantum computing will extend or augment digital computing, the same quantum effects can be harnessed for other means. The most mature example is quantum communications.

    Quantum physics has been proposed as a means to prevent forgery of valuable objects, such as a banknote or diamond. Here, the unusual negative rules embedded within quantum physics prove useful; perfect copies of unknown states cannot be made and measurements change the systems they are measuring. These two limitations are combined in this quantum anti-counterfeiting scheme, making it impossible to copy the identity of the object they are stored in.

    The concept of quantum money is, unfortunately, highly impractical, but the same idea has been successfully extended to communications. The idea is straightforward: the act of measuring quantum super-position states alters what you try to measure, so it’s possible to detect the presence of an eavesdropper making such measurements. With the correct protocol, such as BB84, it is possible to communicate privately, with that privacy guaranteed by fundamental laws of physics.

    Quantum communication systems are commercially available today from firms such as Toshiba and ID Quantique. While the implementation is clunky and expensive now it will become more streamlined and miniaturised, just as transistors have miniaturised over the last 60 years.

    Improvements to nanoscale fabrication techniques will greatly accelerate the development of quantum-based technologies. And while useful quantum computing still appears to be some way off, it’s future is very exciting indeed.The Conversation

    • Robert Young is research fellow and lecturer at Lancaster University
    • This article was originally published on The Conversation


    Albert Einstein Gordon Moore Robert Young
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleSex with robots: reasons not to fear it
    Next Article SABC footing Motsoeneng’s legal bill

    Related Posts

    Out with the bean counters: the rise of the tech-savvy CEO

    24 May 2024

    How ARM chips could transform the data centre business

    20 November 2023

    Scientists discover universe is awash in gravitational waves

    29 June 2023
    Company News

    IoT connectivity management in South Africa – expert insights

    23 June 2025

    Let’s reimagine Joburg using the power of tech, data and AI

    23 June 2025

    Netstar doubles down on global markets while backing SA growth

    23 June 2025
    Opinion

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    AI and the future of ICT distribution

    16 June 2025

    Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

    13 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.