This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Once called a "pipe dream," quantum computers are now approaching practical use. Companies and research institutes around the world are in fierce competition to develop this technology, which has the potential to rapidly perform some calculations that are extremely difficult even for conventional supercomputers.
But what exactly is possible with quantum computers, and where do we currently find ourselves on the road to practical use? We sat down with professor Takuji Miki of the Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation to hear more about the latest trends and future developments in the field. Quantum computers operate on the principles of quantum mechanics, which describes phenomena at extremely small scales, such as atoms and electrons.
While conventional computers process information using bits that take a value of either 0 or 1, quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in a "superposition" of the 0 and 1 states. By taking advantage of this and other quantum phenomena, quantum computers can process multiple possibilities simultaneously for certain types of calculations. One prominent application is in calculations for chemistry.
To give an example, let's take calculations necessary for developing things like new medicines or materials. Simulating a microscale chemical reaction using a conventional computer would require an enormous number of calculations and, as a result, a great deal of time. If you use a quantum computer, however, such calculations could potentially take dramatically less time.
However, the types of calculations that quantum computers excel at performing are limited, meaning that they can't just speed through any calculation. That being said, there are some very important calculations among that group. One of those is prime factorization; in other words, it's breaking an integer into a product of prime numbers (i.e., integers greater than 1 that are divisible only by 1 and themselves).
Conventional computers aren't great at this type of calculation. What is behind the sudden spotlight on quantum computers in recent years? Now that we've entered an advanced information era, we're seeing a sudden increase in the number of calculations we have our computers perform.
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