New IBM breakthroughs bring us closer to desktop quantum computers

The computer Gods at IBM Research are bored with the pedestrian computing abilities of your average desktop. The next step, they posit, is quantum computing — using super-powerful qubits to power a device which could run through millions of pieces of data simultaneously. Current practical and consumer-based applications for the technology are nil; the company hopes to change that.

Image: IBM

IBM says that it’s set three new records in quantum bit research, with researchers able to cut down on simple quantum problem-solving errors while also avoiding degradation of the notoriously fragile chip. The company believes the breakthroughs could eventually make it easier to create qubits by the millions.

“The quantum computing work we are doing shows it is no longer just a brute force physics experiment,” said Matthias Steffen, IBM research team manager. “It’s time to start creating systems based on this science that will take computing to a new frontier.”

Though “new frontier” may sound cliché, the possibilities offered by quantum computing are almost unfathomable. Think: Mt. Everest for an ant, or the vast empty of space for astronauts. According to IBM, the number of atoms in the entire universe still fall short of how much data can be stored inside one 250-qubit.

“What’s been realized is that you can actually take advantage of this [basic quantum] behavior to compute certain kinds of things, say a thousand-digit decimal digit number it would probably take all the existing computers the age of the universe to factor that number,” explains Mark Ketchen, Physics of Information group manager, IBM Research, “whereas a quantum computer of appropriate size maybe could do it in an hour.”

Consumer electronics may not directly reap any rewards from the burgeoning technology for years, if not decades. Quantum computing will sooner aid mathematicians and chemists in uncovering the secrets of the universe before it can be boxed up and sold at Best Buy. (via Extreme Tech)