The age of quantum computing is upon us. A quantum computer is seen as the next big thing in technology, with companies scrambling to develop these scalable super machines.
And if all goes according to plan, Microsoft may have one within the next five years.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had recently outlined three technologies that will soon disrupt the status quo and impact our lives, communities and economies — Artificial Intelligence, Mixed Reality and, you guessed it, quantum computing.
This is a technology that is expected to herald the next wave of the digital revolution and help humanity unlock solutions to problems in areas like clean energy, global warming, material designs and more.
With a little luck, we may even be able to solve the mysteries of our universe!
Based on quantum bits, these computers are a lot faster and more capable than the existing computer systems. Instead of using the classical bits, they use qubits that are not limited to binary.
Meaning, they can have properties of 0 and 1 simultaneously and try every possible number and sequence simultaneously to unlock vast amounts of data. In other words, they can solve complex problems that would otherwise take billions of years for current computers to solve.
Microsoft has partnered with various stakeholders, including universities and governments, to realize this dream. But it is not alone — technology giants like IBM, Google and Intel have also jumped in the race to build a scalable quantum computer.
However, Microsoft has one notable advantage.
Its quantum system can seamlessly integrate with its highly secure Azure cloud platform. The company is also putting together a community of quantum developers.
And in order to help them build applications and algorithms, the technology giant has also released the Quantum Development Kit, a set of enterprise grade tools to write, debug and optimize quantum code.
To top it off, Microsoft is the only major technology firm that is attempting to build topological qubits, which aim to significantly reduce any interference at subatomic levels that might affect the machine. In other words, this approach will have other qubits correct the computational qubits.
A lot to process, as they say.
But with the world now at the cusp of a quantum revolution, this is a technology that packs the potential to make AI even more intelligent.
