Quantum Computers

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Overview

Brief History Computing (generations) Current technology Limitations Theory of Quantum Computing How it Works? Applications Timeline

History

Abacus

Gear Driven
Integrated Circuits Over 200 million transistors.

Moores Law
In 1965 Gordon Moore predicted that number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. This has held true .. So far

Moores Law (cont.)

Recently Gordon Moore announced that his prediction in 1965 would not remain true for much longer.
The Microprocessor Industry was getting closer to the limits of the current technology. The ability to put transistors on chips was approaching the atomic level.

Stretching the limits

Intel has announced new SRAM chips for high density memory.

Contains 330 million transistors.

Pentium IV has 30 million transistors

Problems
Current technology is not having difficulty adding more transistors. At current rate transistors will be as small as an atom.
If scale becomes too small, Electrons tunnel through microthin barriers between wires corrupting signals.

Quantum Computers
Completely new approach to computing. Uses quantum particles to achieve computation. Still Theoretical.

Entanglement
Albert Einstein Baffled Coined phrase spooky action-at-adistance Still remains a mystery Superposition

Two States Are Better Than One!

Digital Computers rely on Os and 1s Voltage produces high and lows Can only have one state Quantum computers can have multiple states

Two places at once

Example

Reflecting photons off half -silvered mirror (deflects half the light) Where do you think the photon landed?

Why Is This Helpful?

Multiple computations simultaneously Computing power is exponential

Digital vs. Quantum

Digital produces serial results, Even with threads! Quantum is truly concurrent Digital computers need an exponential amount of resources to accomplish a task Quantum computers only performs 2^n computations. (n = number of Qubits)

The Larger the problem

Because of the exponential factor

the larger computations save more resources than smaller ones. Adding large calculations to existing algorithms does not complicate computation Efficiency due to Qubits

Power of Algorithms
Multiplication

Algorithms assist in large computations Quantum Algorithms can speed up processes by using logic instructions such as `... and now take a superposition of all numbers from the previous operations...';

Algorithms (cont.)
Will be extremely effective in any logic based algorithms such as factoring large numbers. Algorithms are not just theoretical anymore In 1994 Peter Shor, of Bell Labs devised a polynomial time algorithm for factoring large numbers on a quantum computer.

Status

Quantum Algorithms do exist (Peter Shor) Intellectual hives devoted to quantum computing: Oxford University, University of Innsbruck in Austria, Boulder-Colorado, labs of the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), Los Alamos National Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology , many others. Even Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash., now counts a quantum computer scientist among its theorists.

Status (cont.)

Rudimentary Quantum Computers exist December 19, 2001 IBM performs Shors Algorithm Quantum computing is so complex that expanding on simple operations is still 10 20 years away. Most well known QCs based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

Timeline
Desktop

Quantum computers expected by many within 20 years Faster than anticipated progress

Thank you!