The commercialization of quantum computing also needs to cross technical barriers and scale dilemmas

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Chen Gen

Since physicist Richard Feynman first proposed how to use the properties of quantum mechanics to revolutionize computing in 1982, quantum computing has become one of the most promising technologies. Quantum computers, which have tens or even hundreds of times more computing power than ordinary computers, are a research hotspot that has attracted countless technology companies, large academic groups, and governments from various governments. Companies, and even countries, are focusing on the advantages of quantum computing systems that far outweigh today's "classical" computing systems, namely the realization of so-called "quantum superiority."

However, although Google claimed to have reached this milestone two years ago, the realization of quantum superiority did not solve practical problems that a classical computer could not solve, and IBM and other companies quickly showed that some of the so-called advantages of Google's quantum computing system could be offset by making adjustments to classical computers.

Since then, quantum computing systems have become a new competitive direction for solving practical problems – the commercialization of quantum technologies has received more and more attention. Peter Chapman, CEO of IonQ, expects that the first practical application based on quantum advantage will officially usher in the quantum era. But in fact, at present, scientists and commercial institutions have not developed scalable, commercial-grade quantum computer prototypes. Commercialization of quantum technology still seems distant.

Increase computing power and reduce energy consumption

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that studies the behavior of subatomic particles, and quantum computing using mysterious quantum mechanics transcends the limits of classical Newtonian physics and has long been a dream of the scientific and technological community for achieving exponential growth in computing power.

Classical computers use bits as the unit of information stored, and the bits use binary, and a bit represents either "0" or "1". However, in a quantum computer, the situation becomes completely different, with qubits as the unit of information, which can represent "0", can also represent "1", and can also do "both 1 and 0", which means that the quantum computer can superimpose all possible combinations of "0" and "1" so that the "1" and "0" states exist at the same time.

That is, the 2-bit registers in classical computers can only store one binary number at a time, while the 2-bit qubit registers in quantum computers can maintain the superposition of all 4 states at the same time. When the number of qubits is n, the quantum processor performing one operation on n qubits is equivalent to performing 2 n operations on classical bits, which greatly improves the processing speed of quantum computers. Compared with traditional computers, quantum computers can achieve exponential scale expansion and explosive growth in computing power, forming "quantum superiority".

In addition to achieving an increase in computing power, another core advantage of quantum computing is to reduce energy consumption. As we all know, in classical computers, energy consumption is a major technical problem. The processor operates on the input of two strings of data, and the output result has only one set of data, and the amount of data will naturally decrease after calculation, according to the law of conservation of energy, the disappearing data signal will inevitably generate heat.

Therefore, the more integrated the classical calculation, the more difficult it is to dissipate heat. As Moore's Law approaches its limits, future improvements in computing power can only rely on the accumulation of more computing chips, which will lead to greater energy consumption.

However, in quantum computing, how many sets of data inputs are still how many sets of data are output, and the amount of data in the calculation process does not change, and the calculation process has no energy consumption. This means that energy consumption is generated only at the time of the final measurement. Classical computing, on the other hand, generates energy consumption during the calculation of each bit.

Under the core advantages of open source and throttling to improve computing power and reduce energy consumption, quantum computing is bound to get rid of the current computer industry development technology path and subvert the future of new technologies.

At present, for some traditional industries, a large number of research and development links face the pressure of computing has emerged, especially those in the molecular field of research and development of industries, with the existing computing power of human science and technology, the time and cost consumed are huge, such as biopharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, etc.; there are other technology industries that have higher requirements for computing power, and are also the fields where quantum computing can achieve commercial applications, such as search, digital security, artificial intelligence, machine learning and the metacosm of the current fire.

Undoubtedly, without quantum technology, which is a supercomputing technology, these industries and fields will be difficult to rely on current chips and computer computing technology to process huge data, and realize ultra-long-distance, ultra-high-speed, ultra-safe transmission, computing and application of data.

In computational chemistry, for example, simulating a relatively basic molecule such as caffeine would require a traditional computer of 10 to the 48th power, which is equivalent to 10% of the number of atoms on Earth. Simulating penicillin requires 10 to the 86th power— a number larger than the total number of atoms in the observable universe combined. Conventional computers will never be able to handle such tasks, but in the quantum realm, such calculations are possible.

Quantum computing is sucking gold

At present, quantum computing is receiving more and more attention. As an emerging technology that breaks Moore's Law and achieves exponential growth in computer computing power, it has attracted countless technology companies and large academic groups to invest in it.

In fact, while predictions for the future of the quantum computing industry vary, almost all opinions agree that its scale will be enormous. As Doug Finke, operator of the Quantum Computing Report, a quantum information tracking website, puts it: "I think the market for quantum computing can reach $1 billion by 2025 and possibly $5 billion to $10 billion by 2030." The value of the latter is equivalent to 10%-20% of today's high-performance computing market. According to Honeywell's estimates, the value of quantum computing could reach $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

Based on the broad market prospects of quantum computing, it is not difficult to understand why the commercialization of quantum computing can attract a large amount of public and private investment. Mainstream VCs as well as large companies have begun to bet on private quantum computing companies. Companies such as Google, IBM, and Honeywell are investing heavily in quantum computing, including self-research, private equity investment, and cooperation. According to a recent report, more than $1 billion in private investment will be made in quantum computing research in 2021 alone.

Among them, most of the projects and companies are in the early stages, mostly seed rounds, A rounds, and even incubation/acceleration. It is worth noting that the main body of investment in quantum computing has great particularity, due to the super computing power of quantum computing and the encryption of the communication network composed of quantum cryptography, "national team investment" has played an indispensable driving force in it.

In fact, in addition to the participation of mainstream investment institutions and large companies, the role of "national teams" such as the US DOE, CIA, NASA, Canadian STDC, and Australian Telecom has played a great role in boosting. They promote the scientific research and commercialization of quantum computing in the form of donations, investments, incubations, etc. One of Google's quantum computing projects, for example, involves working with NASA to apply the technology's optimized capabilities to space travel.

In addition, the U.S. government is poised to invest about $1.2 billion into the National Quantum Program (NQI) project. The project was officially launched in late 2018 to provide an overarching framework for quantum information science research and development in academia and the private sector. The UK's National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP), launched in 2013 and committed to invest £1 billion over 10 years, is now in its second phase.

For the mainland, although mainland technology companies entered the field of quantum computing later than the United States, in recent years, industry leaders and research institutes have also begun to lay out in the field of quantum computing. During the "two sessions" in 2021, quantum information technology was mentioned for the first time, becoming one of the core technologies for China's key breakthrough in the "14th Five-Year Plan", and also one of the seven strategic areas of "national security and comprehensive development".

In terms of technology giants, Tencent entered the field of quantum computing in 2017, proposing to use the "ABC2.0" technology layout, that is, the use of artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum computing to build future-oriented infrastructure. Huawei has been engaged in quantum computing research since 2012, and quantum computing is an important research area of Huawei's Center-Centric Research Center Laboratory, including quantum computing software, quantum algorithms and applications. Alibaba, on the other hand, builds an ecosystem by establishing a laboratory for full-stack research and development with hardware as the core, and on the other hand, it explores the application with partners in the upstream, middle, and downstream of the industrial chain.

It can be seen that both technology companies and start-ups have high hopes and enthusiasm for quantum computing.

Technology needs to be broken, and it is difficult to mass-produce on a large scale

The disruptive nature of quantum computing is predictable, but there is still a long way to go before quantum computing can truly be put into useful production. Since the technology is still in the development stage, when quantum technology is in the process of academic landing to enterprise commercialization, the industry still has the practical dilemma of technological breakthrough and large-scale mass production.

At present, the commercialization of quantum computing is still in the stage of technological exploration. Although at present, quantum computing has made some major breakthroughs at the theoretical and experimental levels, some countries, including the United States, Europe, and China, have made different breakthroughs and achievements in quantum technology, and there are also some corresponding commercial applications. However, at present, these commercial applications are still in the early stages, or in the stage of exploration and application of technology.

For example, qubits require quantum coherence to form quantum entanglement, which is equivalent to a classical computer needing a transistor with gain. But how to achieve scale and coherence is the biggest challenge facing quantum computer systems. These problems are difficult to solve even in theory, because quantum information cannot be copied, and subsystems in quantum computers are entangled with each other, which leads to all designs having to think globally.

Moreover, the currently imperfect quantum computer needs more improvements. Shallow quantum circuits require higher gate fidelity and more stability to limit decoherence. Quantum annealing machines need to be improved in terms of connectivity, control accuracy, and coherence time.

From a commercial perspective, companies in the current quantum technology track have hardly achieved cumulative profits. Due to the high technical barriers, enterprise research and development investment is often as high as billions, but the product is still constantly trial and error, and commercialization is difficult to develop. Taking IonQ as an example, as a unicorn company focusing on quantum computing, according to the financial data released by the company, in 2019 and 2020, the company achieved revenue of $200,000 and $0, while the net loss was $8.926 million and $15.424 million, respectively, with a very low degree of commercialization, and most of the investment was research and development expenses.

After Tracking More Than 200 Quantum Technology Startups, Doug Fink expects the vast majority to cease to exist within 10 years, at least not in its current form. "There may be some winners, but there will also be a lot of losers, some will go out of business, some will be acquired, some will be merged," he said. ”

Although the current quantum computing technology has made a series of breakthroughs, it is also in the process of continuous breakthroughs, and governments around the world are also very important, and have invested a lot of financial and manpower, but it is still a long way from the real scale of commercialization. Scale commercialization requires the requirements for technical stability, which is fundamentally different from experimental and small-scale applications.

At present, the core problem facing quantum computing technology is still in the empirical physics stage, which has basically matured in the theoretical physics stage, but when entering the empirical physics stage, what we need is to make this difficult and extremely unstable quantum entanglement a "stability" technology that can be mastered.

Overall, the future of quantum computing is optimistic, and everything about the commercialization of quantum computing is just beginning. So far, we may have found only the tip of the iceberg of quantum computing, whether the first practical application of quantum computing came from a technology company or from other data services companies, banks, pharmaceutical companies or manufacturers trying to apply the technology, the race for quantum computing has already begun.