The Quantum Moonshot
If there is a technology which is likely to disrupt more than any other technology out there, that is both exciting as it is scary, its quantum computing. We talk a lot of about the impact of AI, but while AI capability is growing with accessible data to improve its algorithms, cheap data storage and network effects, the growth of it will be steady while still appearing remarkable to us as humans. At no time in the past has progress seemed so fast, nor will it be so slow. This steady improvement in our lives is likely to see a significant change in the next 5 years with quantum computing.
To help you understand the impact of quantum computing I want to provide an illustration of how disruptive this could be to our lives. Imagine you and I both want to get from the same destination A to the same destination B. For AI assistance I am using Apple maps and you’re using Google maps, now while Apple maps is a great product let’s assume its AI algorithm is 10% less efficient than Googles due to the volume of data Google consumes and their ability to improve their algorithm that much quicker than Apple. The difference is you’re riding a bicycle (standard computing) and I am driving a formula 1 car (quantum computing). The fact my algorithm may be 10% less efficient is negated by the fact I am driving a car 10,000X more powerful than your bicycle.
This is extremely exciting, however keep in mind that quantum computing holds the potential to break many encryption methods in existence today, including that to your bank information, your government citizen & health records and even your home WIFI.
Let’s stop there and have a reality check of where we are at with quantum computing, what is the likelihood of us having a break-through in this area in the next 5-10 years – it’s likely, 10-20 years - highly likely. Microsoft claims to be very close to producing its first quantum computing chip and expects to have this available on Azure as a service in 5 years. Google, IBM, D-Wave and host of others are all claiming to be leading the race, the dark horse in all of this is China. To give some indication of the importance China places on it, it is spending $10B on a quantum national laboratory to open in 2020, the US government on the other hand spent 1/50th of that at $200M in the 12 months to July 2016.
I think we should be realistic about the applications of quantum computing and that is that these computers are a) very large and b) need to be stored in extremely cold conditions, there are unlikely at least in the next couple of decades be something we wear on our wrist. That doesn’t mean we as consumers won’t have access to their power, we will, it will just be your on person device will make calls to a data centre with quantum computing in it and the results will be sent back to your device, no different from how SAAS operates today.
A good example of this is photoshop, you used to run all the processing of this on your desktop computer and depending on the processing power of your computer it would either render something either very quickly or extremely slowly. Adobe has moved the processing server side, so you make a complex change to a multiple layered high-resolution image and instructions for this are sent to our data centre servers and they run the intensive processing and send back the output, meaning you can use this technology even if you have a low-end computer.
How are we as consumers likely to see quantum computing manifest itself and impact our lives? Well firstly it could solve the problem of us dying, it could find the answer through life sciences to infinite life. If we live forever, how we go through life as we do today will fundamentally change, the typical stages of growing up – going to school – university – getting married – buying a house – having kids – retiring will be upended. It will evolve natural language processing to the point interacting with computers by voice will be indistinguishable from human interactions. It could provide more robust weather predictions and in turn better food production to eliminate world hunger, while also allowing significant advancement in food genome development for food security.
Quantum computers will give us the ability to solve complex problems that are beyond even our imagination. It will offer discoveries, innovations and solutions we have never dreamed of yet, while presenting exponential change.
