Quantum Challenge

Mike Bedford explores the latest advances in quantum computing, and how Intel and IBM are working to make an impact in the real world.

- Mike Bedford

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made a startling statement. Every year for the following decade, he suggested, the number of transistors on mainstream chips would double. Shorty after, he amended that predication to a doubling every two years, and remarkably his 10-year forecast has pretty much held true to the current day. This has provided us with huge increases in computing power, and no prospect of it ever coming to the end of the line. Until now, that is, because some experts believe Moore’s Law has run its course, and that future developments will be much more modest.

This gloomy prediction relates to the ‘business as usual’ scenario of speed improvements coming from even more transistors, fuelled by a reduction in the chip’s feature size. It’s this shrinking of the on-chip transistors that seems to be stalling, but some experts are considering whether there are other ways to bring us back on course for the year-on-year improvements we’ve grown to expect. In particular, pundits suggest, the future of computing might be a multi-faceted one, with multiple technologies working hand in hand.

One such technology – the futuristic sounding quantum computing, with its potential for almost unimaginable levels of performance – is our subject here.

QUANTUM LEAPS

So how close are we to the current developments in quantum computing research starting to affect the real world? With several major players in computing involved, we might expect that quantum computing could soon come of age. But the reality is that it’s still astonishing, unfathomable and downright weird technology.