Will the Pandemic be the Rise or Demise of the next generation of technology (Quantum Computing)?

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The Coronavirus Pandemic has become life changing for all us wherever we live in the world, the disruption to businesses and our lives unprecedented and profound. We are all facing the challenges of self-isolating, homeworking, home schooling, food shortages, illness and for some loss of our friends or loved ones.

Never has humanity been so together in fighting a cause, while being asked to keep so far apart. Technology is playing a massive part in our continued connectedness with family, friends and work colleagues, but the current technology has already started to show its limitations.

After all this over, which we are all constantly reassured it will be, what will the impact be on technological advancement? And more specifically the impact on Quantum Computing.

Quantum Computing specifically because, as the next revolution in computing occurs the promises are that it will solve currently impossible problems, particularly in the areas of medical science and chemistry. It sounds like that might be useful.

The computers we know and love (hereafter referred to as Classical Computers) work on the premises of 0’s and 1’s (binary) and the transistors that hold that information can be either off (0) or on (1). As of last year the largest processor had 1.2 trillion transistors, holding an awful lot of 0’s and 1’s. Although this is an incredible amount of computing power, even the biggest super computers struggle with some of the tasks we give them.

Quantum Computers are based on the principals of Quantum Mechanics, a strange and weird world down at the atomic level, where in computing terms the 0 & 1 can be either a 0, a 1 or a 0 & 1 at the same time. Not something easy to understand, in fact even Einstein famously called it ‘spooky’.

The simple impact of this is that Quantum Computers in some tasks will be exponentially faster than current classical computers, and the first single Quantum Computer of an appreciable capacity will outperform all the capacity of all current Classical Computers combined. This is referred to by some as Quantum Supremacy.

For more information there is a great video explainer here from @ChrisBarnatt Intro to Quantum Computing

There are a number of areas in which Quantum Computers will excel and could be a major advantage in the long term to Coronavirus and any future pandemics.

Quantum computing will allow for quick detection of patterns by analysis, integration, and diagnosis from large scattered data sets and will also be able to search extensive, unsorted data sets. It can also view all items in a massive database at the same time to uncover potentially important patterns (Shor’s Algorithm). This could be incredibly powerful for detecting cures, predicting virus spread or even predicting reoccurrences.

Possibly the most exciting, and furthest off, is use in Medical Science. In particular around drug design and ‘in silico’ clinical trials, where rather than using animals or humans for testing, the testing takes in computer simulation at high speed, on virtual patients. Quantum Computing could also allow for sequencing and analysing DNA in real-time.

This could be one of the most immediate and beneficial uses for quantum computers. From making sure that all our shops have the right supplies (or hospitals have their PPE) delivered via the fasted route to as many shops as possible. The more routes and drop off points there are the worse classical computers become at logistical analysis. So benefiting the delivery of our much-increased online purchases from Amazon and the like helping them to scale to deliver millions of packages during a crisis.

With so much potential opportunity from quantum computing you may think the future is not in doubt, but there are challenges, some historic and some new.

Quantum Computers are still in the relatively early stages of development, for the last fifteen to twenty years, they have been ‘just five years away’ and although progress has been made, we are still short of the breakthroughs needed. There are several reasons:

High cost, even although the likes of IBM, Google, Microsoft have all invested billions of dollars in research in recent years, will this continue in the aftermath of the pandemic and global financial uncertainties?

Stability and scalability, the volatile nature of the quantum world means that the quantum state needed to perform computation is unstable and highly prone to errors. This instability leads to the biggest problem of scale. As the size of the Quantum Computer grows so does the error rate and the ability to control Quantum Error Rates is still a challenge waiting to be solved, although progress is being made Development of Quantum Error Correction Codes

One of the main new challenges that may arise from the coronavirus pandemic is around investment, especially if predictions around a global recession are true. As mentioned, this could not only lead to a lack of investment or de-investment from the global tech companies to focus on more profitable services, but also have a negative effect on small companies and start-ups as they become more vulnerable as we continue to suffer the lockdowns imposed in many countries; as this article from the telegraph points out, that is specifically focussed on the UK . Britain Set To Lose Out in Quantum Computing Race

In the last few years incredible progress has been made in the field of Quantum Computing, and we are already starting to see benefits as Quantum Algorithms and Quantum Simulators start to solve some previously intractable problems. Scale and performance are still problems needing to be solved, from which the benefits to all of us could be profound and life changing in many positive ways. As with all transformative technology it will be viewed by many as an opportunity to make business and financial advantages, but my hope is that the opportunities to find cures, develop more sustainable materials, and to benefit all humanity, come first. We will have to watch this space, stay safe and well.

Nigel is a Global Speaker, Influencer and Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, Innovation & Technology (Ranked amongst top 20 AI Influencers in the World) — ex European Chief Technology Officer but now an independent voice on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning