Quantum computing and its potential

 So far we have witnessed 3 industrial revolutions.  These have changed the structure of our economic and social systems. The ability to store, process and transmit information in digital form reformatted almost every industry, and dramatically changed the working and social lives of billions of people. The cumulative impact of these three industrial revolutions has been an incredible increase in wealth and opportunity- at least for those in advanced economies. Now we are in the cusp of 4th Industrial revolution with Important Technology Shifts – Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum computing. Today they might be independent threads and in evolving phase, but they are going to come together in future. Quantum computing, one of the key technology shift in 4th Industry revolution offers incredible breakthrough in the way that we model and optimize complex systems- promising huge increases in efficiencies in fields as diverse as logistics , drug discovery and Financial systems.

There are multiple researches are going on Quantum computing since many years. However, there is a very good traction recently as IBM, Microsoft and google are focusing more on this field as quantum computing has a potential to disrupt their existing businesses. The buzz is getting louder and louder, the potential is high and at the same time hurdles are also high.

What is quantum computing?

Quantum computing basically derive its capability from the Quantum mechanics and emulating the real physical world. As everyone knows classical computer deals with binary digits 1 and 0 to process information. And it will have only two states either 1 or 0 which can be like on or off. Take an example of light switch, which is having two positions either on or off. Whereas Quantum computer deals with Qbits where Q stands for Quantum and it will have either 1 or 0 or both. That means it can be existed in both states simultaneously, which is the revolutionary concept. In the example of light switch, in quantum computer along with either on or off, it can also represent dimmer light. So, Quantum computer deals with probabilistic many number of positions at the same time. Quantum computer derives its principle from two important characteristics of Quantum mechanics such as Superimposition and Entanglement. 

Quantum mechanics deals with atoms and Subatomic particles. Single atom can be in two different states at once. But in real world, it looks like weird, but in microscopic world, it is quite common. Idea is to basically make use of rules of quantum mechanics to process information. In classical computers, you give a certain input and feed it in a computer to get certain output. But if hardware is quantum mechanical, rather than just sequentially providing inputs and reading out the answers, could prepare the computer register in quantum superposition of many different kinds of inputs, there by processing many inputs at once, which is a game changer. The result could be exponential speed compare to the classical programs.

How it is going to disrupt various industries?

In traditional computing—everything from PCs to smart phones and to various electronic devises—all data is represented in bits that exist in one of two states: 0 or 1, off or on. In quantum computing, bits can be 0, 1 or both at the same time. This means quantum computers can perform vastly more complex computations. For example, quantum computers can debug millions of lines of software code in seconds, making reliable aircraft, cars, MRI scanners, etc. more efficient to produce.

However, real power of quantum computers may not be known at this juncture as the different kinds of algorithms could evolve once they ready for use similar to Classical computing evolution. Based on the existing research available, Quantum computers could be used to analyze vast data sets and patterns, and could come up more accurate predictions to weather data, financial data, which traditional computers lack the processing power necessary to quickly analyze and come up with accurate predictions.

Key capability of Quantum computers are its ability to process larger sets of complex data and its very high processing speed. As per McKinesy report, two years ago there were already 7,000 researchers in the field globally, with a collective budget of about $1.5 billion. There are very high stakes from the Key Industrial leaders across the globe as Quantum computing has the potential to change the world and existing technologies that are built on classical computing. This level of investment that is being spent on Quantum computing by players in the Industry will certainly make its reality closer than many people assume, perhaps three to five years rather than a decade or more. 

Quantum computers will also complement other emerging technologies like IOT and Machine Learning. As per the estimations, by 2020 around 30 billion of objects would connect globally and generates lots of data that Quantum computers can analyze to understand the patterns and come up with near to accurate predictions and also could provide wide variety of applications in the areas such as Health care, Material science, Logistics and Financial services etc.

There is a caution for Banking and financial institutions whose fundamental encryption algorithms built on classical computing could be broken by quantum computers and can create mayhem for secure online transactions. Hence, it is time for these institutions and Fintechs ready for future disruption of quantum computing and should adapt to the Quantum algorithms. These algorithms runs exponentially faster than the best known classical algorithms for the same task. There could be a big threat poses to Blockchain technology as well as its importance and relevance is mainly built on security along with other key features. And the current algorithms being used in Blockchain are more vulnerable and can be broken with Quantum computing. However, there is a flipside, with Quantum computing, Blockchain transactions verifications can be faster, increases it performance and paves the way for its wider use cases in the industries, which can be a game changer.

Quantum computing could provide exponentially more computing power for solving certain types of problems that require the use of complex algorithmic models to determine a likely outcome. Banks can leverage this potential breakthrough technology coupled with Machine learning for improved risk analysis and assessments to predicting how portfolios will perform on varying circumstances or identifying which products a company should trade/target to get their desired outcome. Though, we are at very early stages of applying quantum computing to financial services, clearly there is a need to set goal to identify and validate the problems where quantum algorithm outdo existing computing methods built on classical computing and improve the results. It is a matter of time technology’s potential for both security and disruption are realized.