When you look back on the past 100 years, think of how much has changed, especially in technology. If you went back in time, and told people what was to come, they would think you were crazy right? Now look forward 100 years and imagine what is to come.
Technology is always changing and growing, and in the world of computing, one big change that might quite possibly affect every industry, is quantum computing. Quantum computing approaches solving problems in a fundamentally new way. Traditional computing sees everything you do from watching videos, to reading this article, as a specific combination of 0’s and 1’s, whereas quantum computing uses three different quantum properties to see all of the possibilities at once. Superposition, which is where it spins the variable, essentially allowing it to be the 0 and a 1 simultaneously. Entangled, where the two are connected working in a system that, whatever happens to one, happens to the other, and interference, which is basically how noise cancelling headphones work. There is constructive and destructive interference, wave amplitudes that add and ones that cancel. This allows you to control quantum states, amplifying the ones that lead you to the right answer, and cancelling the ones that will lead you to the wrong answer.
With traditional computers, problems can be so large, that you run out of computing space while trying to solve it, even with the world’s largest super computers. With this new way of computing (computers built based on quantum mechanics), this problem is remedied. Why this is powerful, is because it essentially creates multiple realities, reading the information in each one simultaneously, ruling out the ones that will lead you to the wrong answer, and leading you towards the realities with the right answer. You can imagine that this capability would make problem solving exponentially faster, leading to new discoveries in AI, machine learning, medicine, transportation, security, privacy, and a better understanding of nature.
AI and machine learning are on the rise. Many industries, including the automotive industry are implanting and/or implementing AI systems right now, from the manufacturing process, to the behind the wheel experience. Autonomous vehicles maneuvering through traffic, using machine learning to adjust and correct, removing the variable of human error thus reducing accidents, and improving traffic flow. From driverless grocery delivery to coast to coast driverless transportation, the potential for growth is endless and with these new advancements, comes new job opportunities. According to John Prisco, President & CEO of Quantum Xchange, “The large tech companies and research laboratories who are leading the charge on R&D in the pure quantum computing hardware space are looking for people with advanced degrees in key STEM fields like physics, math and engineering.”
As you can see, quantum computing has the potential to drastically affect many industries, creating entirely new fields, changing others, such as automotive mechanics, and advancing us into untold futures. Can’t wait to see what the next 100 years have to bring, they are shaping up to have quantum leaps in the advancement of mankind.
