Setting the scene for a quantum marketplace: where quantum business is up to and how it might unfold

-

Setting the scene for a quantum marketplace: where quantum business is up to and how it might unfold




As quantum computing makes its first forays from the lab to the real world, are the latest claims mere hype causing a bubble that will burst before the field finds its feet? Or are investors and researchers right to be enthusiastic about this burgeoning technological revolution? Philip Ball investigates the successes and pitfalls of commercializing quantum information technology
When the world’s “first quantum computer” hit the market in 2015, the response was decidedly mixed. Perhaps it’s not surprising that demand for the machine was not exactly clamorous, given its price tag of $10m. But some accused the makers, the quantum-computing company D-Wave Systems from Burnaby in Canada, of hyping the abilities of its machine – which was not even unanimously agreed to be making use of quantum principles at all.

It wasn’t an auspicious start to the commercialization of quantum information technologies (QITs). But that’s not unusual for a new technology. The first motor cars, after all, were prohibitively expensive for most people and were considered health-and-safety hazards. Raising great clouds of dust on unsurfaced roads, cars incited such public opposition that drivers sometimes carried guns for self-protection. At least we know now that quantum computers – information-processing devices that exploit the laws of quantum mechanics to develop new capabilities – are possible. “There is no known barrier from the physics side to building such machines,” says physicist Ian Walmsley, provost of Imperial College in London. “But we’re now moving to the very difficult and challenging engineering that you need to make these things work.”

QIT has not yet found its Henry Ford or Bill Gates to democratize the industry with affordable and reliable devices. “At this stage it’s a game of iterative engineering improvement, not conceptual breakthroughs,” says Chad Rigetti, founder and chief executive of the quantum-computer company Rigetti Computing in Berkeley, California. But already the commercial sector is growing fast. “This ramping up of industrial activity has happened sooner and more suddenly than most of us expected,” says quantum theorist John Preskill of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Private and public investment

Projections for the future size of the quantum computing industry vary – but most are big. “I think quantum computing will represent a $1bn market by the middle of this decade, and perhaps $5–10bn by 2030,” says Doug Finke, who runs the QIT-tracking website Quantum Computing Report. The latter value would be 10–20% of the value of the high-performance computing market today. According to an estimate from Honeywell, QIT could be worth $1 trillion over the next three decades.

Global Energy Awards

Nomination link: https://globalenergyawards.org/award-nomination/...

Visit Our Website: globalenergyawards.org
Contact Us: support@globalenergyawards.org

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Explore the Fourth Dimension"

-
Image
Fourth Dimension   The fourth dimension is a fascinating concept that has captured the imaginations of scientists, mathematicians, and artists for centuries. Unlike our three-dimensional world, which is limited by the linear flow of time, the fourth dimension is a realm of space and time that exists beyond our everyday experience. One way to visualize the fourth dimension is through the use of a hypercube, also known as a tesseract. A hypercube is a cube within a cube, with additional lines and edges connecting the vertices of the two cubes. It's impossible to construct in our three-dimensional world, but it provides a glimpse into what the fourth dimension might look like. Another way to understand the fourth dimension is through the concept of a wormhole, a theoretical passage through space-time that connects two distant points in the universe. A wormhole is like a shortcut through the fabric of space-time, allowing us to travel vast distances in an instant. While there is no de...
Read more

Physicists observe a new form of magnetism for the first time

-
Image
MIT physicists have demonstrated a new form of magnetism that could one day be harnessed to build faster, denser, and less power-hungry " spintronic " memory chips. The new magnetic state is a mash-up of two main forms of magnetism: the ferromagnetism of everyday fridge magnets and compass needles, and antiferromagnetism, in which materials have magnetic properties at the microscale yet are not macroscopically magnetized. Now, the MIT team has demonstrated a new form of magnetism , termed "p-wave magnetism." Physicists have long observed that electrons of atoms in regular ferromagnets share the same orientation of "spin," like so many tiny compasses pointing in the same direction. This spin alignment generates a magnetic field, which gives a ferromagnet its inherent magnetism. Electrons belonging to magnetic atoms in an antiferromagnet also have spin, although these spins alternate, with electrons orbiting neighboring atoms aligning their spins antiparalle...
Read more

Quantum Tunneling Breakthrough: Technion Scientists Move Atoms With Precision

-
Image
In a groundbreaking experiment at the Technion Faculty of Physics , researchers demonstrated the transfer of atoms via quantum tunneling using optical tweezers. This novel method, which strategically avoids trapping atoms in the middle tweezer, represents a notable stride toward innovative quantum technologies. Quantum Tunneling in Optical Tweezers A new experiment at the Technion Faculty of Physics demonstrates how atoms can be transferred between locations using quantum tunneling with optical tweezers. Led by Prof. Yoav Sagi and doctoral student Yanay Florshaim from the Solid State Institute, this research was published recently in Science Advances. The experiment relies on optical tweezers , a powerful tool that uses focused laser beams to trap and manipulate tiny particles like atoms, molecules, and even living cells. Here’s how it works: when light interacts with matter, it creates a force proportional to the light’s intensity. This force, though too weak to impact larger objects,...
Read more