The Future of Computing

The first iPhone, already obsolete by today's standards.

           When Apple released the first iPhone; it was hailed as a technological marvel because for the first time a computer, camera, music player, email and the Internet could fit in in the palm of your hand and be activated by a seamless touch screen interface. This advancement was made possible by the products, which had come before it. Sure, there were previous MP3 players, point and shoot cameras, and even other cellphones but they were all separate devices and at best other cell phones integrated only one or two of the aforementioned features. The ability to add more features into a smaller package was fueled in part by Moore’s Law and how the individual components keep getting smaller, faster and more energy efficient (Wöhrl). The computing world is changing so rapidly that the electronic landscape looks nothing like it did when the first iPhone was released which was just in 2007!

 Moore's Law

            There is just one problem with the rapid technological growth and expansion that we are experiencing though and that is that it’s unsustainable. Along with the growth rate predictions, Moore’s Law also indicates that advancements will become harder to achieve and the gains will also reduce in significance with each passing achievement (Wikipedia). Most of the initial advancements came from one of two places 1.) Shrinking components or 2.) Materials advancements. But as we run out of new materials to try and we reach a plateau of how small we can reliable make classical computing components we are beginning to hit a wall. Feynman’s lecture on nanotechnology was titled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom,” so what happened?

Richard Feynman, one of the founding fathers of Nanotechnology

 

            The reality is that there is still plenty or room at the bottom, but there isn’t enough room just above the bottom; or at least that space isn’t worth utilizing. As we miniaturize components it is clear that the smallest size transistor possible would be a single atom using its electron spin to store data; a quantum computer (Wöhrl). With that end goal in sight it becomes easier to focus our efforts on achieving this challenge than to continue to working on increasingly marginalized advancements. There is more to why quantum computers are the future than just the reduction in size. Traditional or classic computers use bits to store data in binary code with 1’s and 0’s. Two bits are required to store data in the format 00, 01, 11 and 10 (PD Knowledge). But because of the quantum nature of electrons and spin states, these qubits have the ability to be both-spin up, spin-down and several degrees in-between the two, this is called superposition (Quantum Computing). This makes quantum computers run on an entirely different base math system. An example of how this would impact calculations would be similar to cracking a password composed of letters versus numbers. When using numbers there are only 10 possible options, but with letters there are 26, so naturally guessing a password composed of letters is exponentially harder compared to numbers and the difficulty increases along with the password. Qubits abilities to represent multiple spin states at the same time allows calculations to run more complex calculations and to carry out those calculations in parallel. This means answers can be generated in a fraction of a time compared to classical computers.

Quantum computers can solve difficult problems at high speed

            To represent the benefits of quantum computing over classic computing is the to attempt to crack RSA-2048 Encryption. Cracking RSA-2048 requires finding prime numbers that where multiplied together to equal the final encrypted hash. With a classical such a task would take 1 billion years, but with a quantum computer the task would take a mere 100 seconds (Svore)! The benefits of quantum computers are astronomical in size and show why there is such a push to develop the technology further, but with every new technology there are significant roadblocks. Some of these difficulties include building the chips, storing the data, reading the data back, trapping the spin state electron and not to mention that the entire device must be run at 10 mil-Kelvin which is approximately 100 times colder than interstellar space (DWave Systems). 

 DWave Systems quantum computer runs at 10 mil-Kelvin

           Even though quantum computers use nanotechnology and are composed of atoms, the devices are anything but small in size. Current quantum computers take up entire rooms and are vastly expensive to build and operate, but that has always been the history of computer and technology. The Eniac computer from 1946 took up an entire room; it took over 60 years to commercialize, miniaturize and develop that technology until it was portable enough to power your iPhone. With quantum computers we are witnessing the birth of future computing, but it will take time until they are ready to fit into you pocket or to power you iPad.

 Eniac computer 1946

References:

Wöhrl, Nicolas. "Introduction to Quantum Computers." <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb3gn5GsvRk>. YouTube. YouTube, 8 Nov. 2014. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

 

PD Knowledge. "Quantum Computer in a Nutshell." <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dXNmbiGPS4>. YouTube. YouTube, 11 Oct. 2014. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

Svore, Krysta. "Quantum Computing: Transforming the Digital Age." <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUp_B7ZpiXk>. YouTube. YouTube, 9 Jun. 2015. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

"Quantum computing." Wikipedia. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing>. 

“Welcome to the Future” Dwave Systems. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

<http://www.dwavesys.com/>.

"Moore's Law." Wikipedia. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law>.