I recently stumbled across a very interesting yet very understated fact about the future of computing. It’s a concept that I have a great difficulty understanding, and it makes me wish I paid more attention in physics and chemistry. You may have heard of a principle called Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law is a prediction by Gordon E. Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel, concerning the trend in the gradual increase in computing power since the 1960s. Moore predicted, based on pre-existing data, that the processing power of computers doubles every two years. This comes as a result of the amount of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit. The more transistors, the more powerful the computer. This prediction has been extremely accurate and has been more or less correct for the last fifty years, however there is a problem with this law. The processing power of a computer relies primarily on the amount of transistors that can be squeezed on to circuit, which is not indefinite. Eventually, the processing power of silicon-based computers will be halted by the limitation of miniaturisation. In other words, the transistors can’t keep getting smaller, there is always a barrier as you cannot get smaller than an atom.
This poses a problem for the Digital Age. Computers have steadily been getting more and more powerful as time has gone by, and we are facing the end of this progression. At the current rate of doubling every two years, the wall will be hit between 2013 and 2018. So to clarify, in four to nine years silicon-based computers will have reached the limit of their potential. Making the only way to progress is to go back to the drawing board. Many have suggested ways of prolonging the inevitable limit of processing power, such as theories concerning layering or expanding the size of chips, however each of these merely delay silicon’s shortcomings. However another concept is a lot more interesting.
A quantum computer is an entirely different approach to computing. It is essentially starting all over again with a different theory and with different technology. Quantum computers process data using what is called ‘Quantum Mechanics’, the set of principles governing the atomic level of matter. This is our understanding of how atoms are structured, and how everything exists. Whilst silicon computers process data through simple binary switches, on and off, 1 and 0, quantum computers use the quantum states of atoms to process data at an unbelievable rate. This seems to far in to the realms of science fiction, however rudimentary quantum computers have been built and are proven to work. The world record for quantum computing calculation is a computer that was able to calculate that 5 + 3 = 15. A simple and seemingly remarkable feet, yet this calculation was performed on seven atoms. This processor was composed of just seven atoms.
The use of quantum states rather than binary code gives quantum processing a massive advantage over silicon processing. Multi-tasking. Or parallel processing. Whilst a single core of a desktop processor carries out one instruction at a time, a quantum computer carries out millions. This parallelism endows a quantum computer with amazing speed, as 300,000 calculations would take the same amount of time as 1, or even 3,000,000. Time is no longer a factor.
Google recently announced its interest in using quantum computers to replace its massive amounts of servers. Just this month a single-atom quantum transistor was created, showing great promise for the future. The field of quantum research is ever expanding and the reality of quantum computing draws nearer. Quantum computing theory appears to be correct, hindered only by what is called quantum decoherance, vibrations from external sources that interfere with the atoms. Scientists seem optimistic that a way of shielding the atoms will be invented, which would trigger a completely new start for all computers.
Renegade
