QUANTUM COMPUTING

Department of Computer science and Applications

1. ABSTRACT
A quantum computer is a computation device that makes direct use
of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as the superposition and
entanglement of atoms, photons, electrons etc., to perform operations
on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based
on transistors [1]. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded
into binary digits (bits), quantum computation uses quantum properties to
represent data and perform operations on these data. A theoretical model is
the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum
computer. Quantum computers shared theoretical similarities with non-
deterministic and probabilistic computers [1, 5, and 8]. It has the potential
to perform calculations, billions of time faster than any silicon based
computer.
2. INTRODUCTION
Civilization has advanced as people discovered new ways of exploiting
various physical resources such as materials, forces and energies. In the
twentieth century information was added to the list when the invention of
computers allowed complex information processing to be performed
outside human brains. The history of computer technology has involved a
sequence of changes from one type of physical realization to another ---
from gears to relays to valves to transistors to integrated circuits and so on.

Today’s computers are classical, a fact which is actually not entirely

obvious. A basis of modern computers rests on semiconductor technology.
Transistors, which are the “neurons” of all computers, work by exploiting
properties of semiconductors. Classical computers are in a certain,
restricted, sense quantum mechanical, because, as far as we understand
today, everything is quantum mechanical. No, classical computers,
although based on quantum physics, are not fully quantum, because they do
not use “quantumness” of matter at the information-theoretical level, where
it really matters.

Gordon Moore proposed Moore’s law in 1965, which originally stated

that processor power and speed would double in size every eighteen months
(this was later revised to two years). This law still holds but is starting to
falter, and components are getting smaller. Soon they will be so small, being
made up of a few atoms that quantum effects will become unavoidable,
possibly ending Moore’s law. There are ways in which we can use quantum
effects to our advantage in a classical sense, but by fully utilizing those
effects we can achieve much more. This approach is the basis for quantum
computing.
3. HISTORY
The fled of quantum computation is largely a body of theoretical
promises for some impressively fast algorithms which could be executed
on quantum computers. However, since the first significant algorithm was
proposed in 1994 experimental progress has been rapid with several
schemes yielding two and three quantum-bit manipulations [2].
Quantum computers were first discussed by Paul Benioff in the
context of simulating classical Turing machines (very elementary
conventional computers) with quantum unitary evolution [4]. Feynman
considered the converse question of how well classical computers can
simulate quantum systems [3]. He concluded that classical computers
invariably super from an exponential slow-down in trying to simulate
quantum systems, but that quantum systems could, in principle, simulate
each other without this slowdown. It was Deutsch, however, who first
suggested that quantum superposition might allow quantum evolution to
perform many classical computations in parallel [5, 6].
4. QUANTUM MECHANICS
The Quantum mechanics is generally about the novel behaviour of
very small things. At this scale matter becomes quantized, this means that
it can’t be subdivided no more. Quantum mechanics has never been wrong,
it explains why the stars shine, how matter is structured, the periodic table,
and countless other phenomena [10].

The following are main parts of quantum mechanics that are

important for quantum computing:

• Superposition and interference

• Uncertainty
• Entanglement
• Linear algebra
• Dirac notation
• Representing information
4.1 Superposition
Superposition means a system can be in two or more of its states
simultaneously. For example a single particle can be traveling along two
different paths at once. This implies that the particle has wave-like
properties, which can mean that the waves from the different paths can
interfere with each other. Interference can cause the particle to act in ways
that are impossible to explain without these wave-like properties. The
ability for the particle to be in a superposition is where we get the parallel
nature of quantum computing: If each of the states corresponds to a
different value then, if we have a superposition of such states and act on the
system, we effectively act on all the states simultaneously.

4.2 Uncertainty
The quantum world is irreducibly small so it’s impossible to measure a
quantum system without having an effect on that system as our
measurement device is also quantum mechanical. As a result there is no
way of accurately predicting all of the properties of a particle. There is a
trade off - the properties occur in complementary pairs (like position and
momentum, or vertical spin and horizontal spin) and if we know one
property with a high degree of certainty then we must know almost nothing
about the other property. That unknown property’s behavior is essentially
random. An example of this is a particle’s position and velocity: if we know
exactly where it is then we know nothing about how fast it is going. This
indeterminacy is exploited in quantum cryptography. It has been postulated
(and currently accepted) that particles in fact DO NOT have defined values
for unknown properties until they are measured. This is like saying that
something does not exist until it is looked at.

4.3 Entanglement
In 1935 Einstein (along with colleagues Podolski and Rosen) demonstrated
a paradox (named EPR after them) in an attempt to refute the undefined
nature of quantum systems. The results of their experiment seemed to show
that quantum systems were defined, having local state BEFORE
measurement. Although the original hypothesis was later proven wrong (i.e.
it was proven that quantum systems do not have local state before
measurement). The effect they demonstrated was still important, and later
became known as entanglement. Entanglement is the ability for pairs of
particles to interact over any distance instantaneously. Particles don’t
exactly communicate, but there is a statistical correlation between results
of measurements on each particle that is hard to understand using classical
physics. To become entangled, two particles are allowed to interact; they
then separate and, on measuring say, the velocity of one of them (regardless
of the distance between them), we can be sure of the value of velocity of
the other one (before it is measured). The reason we say that they
communicate instantaneously is because they store no local state and only
have well defined state once they are measured. Because of this limitation
particles can’t be used to transmit classical messages faster than the speed
of light as we only know the states upon measurement. Entanglement has
applications in a wide variety of quantum algorithms and machinery.

4.4 Linear Algebra

Quantum mechanics leans heavily on linear algebra. Some of the concepts
of quantum mechanics come from the mathematical formalism, not thought
experiments, that’s what can give rise to counter intuitive conclusions.

4.5 Dirac Notation

Dirac notation is used for quantum computing. We can represent the states
of a quantum system as kets. For example, an electron’s spin can be
represented as |0> spin up and |1> as spin down. The electron can be
thought of as a little magnet, the effect of a charged particle spinning on its
axis. When we pass a horizontally traveling electron through an
inhomogeneous magnetic field, in say, the vertical direction, the electron
either goes up or down. If we then repeat this with the up electron it goes
up, with the down electron it goes down. We say the up electron after the
first measurement is in the state |0> and the down electron is in state |1>.
But, if we take the up electron and pass it through a horizontal field it comes
out on one side 50% of the time and on the other side 50% of the time. If
we represent these two states as | + > and | - > we can say that the up spin
electron was in a superposition of the two states |+> and | - > : such that,
when we make a measurement with the field horizontal we project the
electron into one or the other of the two states, with equal probabilities 1/2

4.6 Representing Information

Quantum mechanical information can be physically realized in many ways.
To have something analogous to a classical bit we need a quantum
mechanical System with two states only, when measured. Methods for
representing binary information in a way that is capable of exhibiting
quantum effects (e.g. entanglement and superposition) are: electron spin,
photon direction, polarization of photons and nuclear spins.
 5. ELEMENTS OF QUANTUM COMPUTING
The basic element of quantum computing includes the qubits, the
quantum gates, quantum circuits and quantum algorithms [12].

5.1 The Qubit

The qubit is the quantum analogue of the bit, the classical fundamental unit
of information [20]. It is a mathematical object with specific properties that
can be realized physically in many different ways as an actual physical
system. Just as the classical bit has a state (either 0 or 1), a qubit also has a
state. Yet contrary to the classical bit, 0 and 1 are but two possible states of
the qubit, and any linear combination (superposition) thereof is also
physically possible. In general, thus, the physical state of a qubit is the
superposition
ψ = α0 + β1
(Where α and β are complex numbers). The state of a qubit can be
described as a vector in a two-dimensional Hilbert space, a complex vector
space. The special states 0 and 1 are known as the computational basis
states, and form an orthonormal basis for this vector space. According to
quantum theory, when we try to measure the qubit in this basis in order to
determine its state, we get either 0 with probability α² or 1 with probability
β². Since α² + β² = 1 (i.e., the qubit is a unit vector in the aforementioned
two-dimensional Hilbert state), we may (ignoring the overall phase factor)
effectively write its state as ψ = cos(θ)0 + eiφsin(θ)1, where the numbers θ
and φ define a point on the unit three-dimensional sphere, as shown here.
This sphere is often called the Bloch sphere, and it provides a useful means
to visualize the state of a single qubit.
Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet
when measured it yields only the classical result (0 or 1) with certain
probabilities that are specified by the quantum state. In other words, the
measurement changes the state of the qubit, “collapsing” it from the
superposition to one of its terms. The crucial point is that unless the qubit
is measured, the amount of “hidden” information it stores is conserved
under the dynamic evolution (namely, Schrödinger's equation). This feature
of quantum mechanics allows one to manipulate the information stored in
unmeasured qubit with quantum gates, and is one of the sources for the
putative power of quantum computers.
 0

1
Fig. 1.1 The Bloch Sphere
(Stanford Encyclopedia, Quantum Computing)[18]
To see why, let us suppose we have two qubits with us. If these were
classical bits, then they could be in four possible states (00, 01, 10, and 11).
Correspondingly, a pair of qubits has four computational basis states (00,
01, 10 and 11). But while a single classical two-bit register can store these
numbers only one at a time, a pair of qubits can also exist in a superposition
of these four basis states, each of which with its own complex coefficient
(whose mod square, being interpreted as probability, is normalized). As
long as the quantum system evolves unitarily and is unmeasured, all four
possible states are simultaneously “stored” in a single two-qubit quantum
register. More generally, the amount of information that can be stored in a
system of n unmeasured qubits grows exponentially in n. The difficult task,
however, is to retrieve this information efficiently.
5.2 Quantum Gates
Classical computational gates are Boolean logic gates that perform
manipulations of the information stored in the bits. In quantum computing
these gates are represented by matrices, and can be visualized as rotations
of the quantum state on the Bloch sphere. This visualization represents the
fact that quantum gates are unitary operators, i.e., they preserve the norm
of the quantum state (if U is a matrix describing a single qubit gate, then
U†U=I, where U† is the ad joint of U, obtained by transposing and then
complex-conjugating U). As in the case of classical computing, where there
exists a universal gate (the combinations of which can be used to compute
any computable function), namely, the NAND gate which results from
performing an AND gate and then a NOT gate, in quantum computing it was
shown that any multiple qubit logic gate may be composed from a quantum
CNOT gate (which operates on a multiple qubit by flipping or preserving
the target bit given the state of the control bit, an operation analogous to the
classical XOR, i.e., the exclusive OR gate) and single qubit gates. One
feature of quantum gates that distinguishes it from classical gates is that
they are reversible: the inverse of a unitary matrix is also a unitary matrix,
and thus a quantum gate can always be inverted by another quantum gate
[13].

Fig. 1.2: The CNOT Gate

Unitary gates manipulate the information stored in the quantum

register, and in this sense ordinary (unitary) quantum evolution can be
regarded as computation (showed how a small set of single-qubit gates and
a two-qubit gate is universal, in the sense that a circuit combined from this
set can approximate to arbitrary accuracy any unitary transformation of n
qubits)[2]. In order to read the result of this computation, however, the
quantum register must be measured. The measurement gate is a non-unitary
gate that “collapses” the quantum superposition in the register onto one of
its terms with the corresponding probability. Usually this measurement is
done in the computational basis, but since quantum mechanics allows one
to express an arbitrary state as a linear combination of basis states, provided
that the states are orthonormal (a condition that ensures normalization) one
can in principle measure the register in any arbitrary orthonormal basis.
This, however, doesn't mean that measurements in different bases are
efficiently equivalent. Indeed, one of the difficulties in constructing
efficient quantum algorithms stems exactly from the fact that measurement
collapses the state, and some measurements are much more complicated
than others.

5.3 Quantum Circuits

Quantum circuits are similar to classical computer circuits in that
they consist of wires and logical gates. The wires are used to carry the
information, while the gates manipulate it (note that the wires do not
correspond to physical wires; they may correspond to a physical particle, a
photon, moving from one location to another in space, or even to time-
evolution). Conventionally, the input of the quantum circuit is assumed to
be a computational basis state, usually the state consisting of all 0. The
output state of the circuit is then measured in the computational basis, or in
any other arbitrary orthonormal basis. The first quantum algorithms were
constructed in this paradigm [2, 3, and 20]. Additional paradigms for
quantum computing exist today that differ from the quantum circuit model
in many interesting ways. So far, however, they all have been demonstrated
to be computationally equivalent to the circuit model (see below), in the
sense that any computational problem that can be solved by the circuit
model can be solved by these new models with only a polynomial overhead
in computational resources.

5.3.1 Important Properties of Quantum Circuits

Quantum circuit diagrams have the following constraints which
make them different from classical diagrams.

 They are acyclic (no loops).

 No FANIN, as FANIN implies that the circuit is NOT reversible, and
therefore not unitary.
 No FANOUT, as we can’t copy a qubits state during the
computational phase because of the no-cloning theorem.

5.4 Quantum Algorithms

Algorithm design is a highly complicated task, and in quantum computing
it becomes even more complicated due to the attempts to harness quantum
mechanical features to reduce the complexity of computational problems
and to “speed-up” computation [2]. Before attacking this problem, we
should first convince ourselves that quantum computers can be harnessed
to perform standard, classical, computation without any “speed-up”. In
some sense this is obvious, given the belief in the universal character of
quantum mechanics, and the observation that any quantum computation
that is diagonal in the computational basis, i.e., involves no interference
between the qubits, is effectively classical. Yet the demonstration that
quantum circuits can be used to simulate classical circuits is not
straightforward (recall that the former are reversible while the latter use
gates which are inherently irreversible). Indeed, quantum circuits cannot be
used directly to simulate classical computation, but the latter can still be
simulated on a quantum computer using an intermediate gate, namely the
Toffoli gate. This gate has three input bits and three output bits, two of which
are control bits, unaffected by the action of the gate. The third bit is a target
bit that is flipped if both control bits are set to 1, and otherwise is left alone.
This gate is reversible (its inverse is itself), and can be used to simulate all
the elements of the classical irreversible circuit with a reversible one.
Consequently, using the quantum version of the Toffoli gate one can
simulate, although rather tediously, irreversible classical logic gates with
quantum reversible ones. Quantum computers are thus capable of
performing any computation which a classical deterministic computer can
do [16].
What about non-deterministic computation? Not surprisingly, a
quantum computer can simulate also this type of computation by using
another famous quantum gate, namely the Hadamard gate, which receives
as an input the state 0 and produces the state (0 + 1)/√2. Measuring this
output state yields 0 or 1 with 50/50 probability, which can be used to
simulate a fair coin toss.

Fig. 1.3: The Hadamard Gate

 6 .QUANTUM COMPUTERS

A quantum computer looks like this, taking n input qubits, the

register V, and producing n output qubits, the register W:

The input register can be prepared as a superposition of states, e.g. an equal

n
superposition of all integers from 0 to 2 :

n
The computer then calculates in parallel the function applied to all 2
integers simultaneously. From QMP (Quantum Measurement Postulate),
when we measure W, it will choose a Boolean for each bit of the output
register according to the resulting entangled wave function of the output
qubits. Design F so that it maximizes the probability that the output we
measure is the answer we want.
Measuring the output collapses the wave function: get Boolean values for
all the qubits in W. The result is one of the possible outputs.
Imagine that F is (integer) square root W =√V. Prepare V as the
n
superposition of all integers from 0 to 2 , run the computer, then measure
n
W. Result will square root of some number between 0 and 2 . The square
root of any such number, with equal probability. F calculates the square
roots of all the integers in parallel, but QMP says we can only find out about
one. For real problems, arrange F so the probability amplitudes of the
output state strongly favor the desired output from F. .
A quantum computer is probabilistic: we may need to run it multiple times
before we get the answer we want.
6.1 What quantum computers can do?

The biggest success so far -- and the event which ignited the current
explosive growth of the field of quantum computing -- was Peter Shor's
1994 discovery of an efficient quantum algorithm for finding the prime
factors (factoring) of large integers[8].
By making clever use of superposition’s, interference, quantum
parallelism, and some classical number theory, Shor's algorithm finds a
factor of a number N in time roughly the square of the length of the input
(which is log N bits). In contrast, every known classical algorithm requires
exponential time to factor. Since factoring is one of the most elementary
aspects of number theory, the oldest mathematical discipline, and centuries
of efforts by the greatest mathematicians have not yielded better methods,
it is widely believed that such better methods either do not exist or are
prohibitively difficult to find.
In fact, this belief underlies most of current public-key cryptography,
notably the RSA system, ubiquitously used on the Internet and in the
financial world. Such crypto-systems can be broken if one can factor large
numbers fast. Accordingly, the advent of quantum computing compromises
all such systems: if a quantum computer can be built, then most of current
cryptography becomes totally insecure, and, for example, electronic money
can be forged.
What quantum computing takes away with one hand (classical public-
key crypto), it gives back in another form with the other (quantum secret-
key crypto).In 1984, Bennett and Brassard found a scheme which allowed
two distant parties to obtain a shared secret key via quantum mechanical
communication. Their scheme was always believed to be fully secure
against any type of spy or eavesdropper, and recently this has indeed been
formally proven. On the other hand, some other parts of electronic
transactions, like unforgivable signatures, appear to be beyond the power
of quantum methods.
A third application is Grover's 1996 algorithm for searching
databases. Consider finding some specific record in a large unordered
database of N items. Classically, there is no smarter method than just to go
through all records sequentially, which will requires expected N / 2 time
steps for a record in general position. Grover's algorithm, however, uses
quantum superposition’s to examine all records ``at the same time'', and
finds the desired record in roughly √N steps.
12
Examining a 10 records with unit microsecond probes, this is the
difference between about two months of computing and one second of
computing! His algorithm also allows to solve the widespread and
notoriously hard NP-complete problems (such as the traveling salesman
problem) quadratic ally faster than known classical methods--reducing say
exponential time with exponent N to exponential time with exponent N / 2.
A fourth application was initially conceived and primarily developed
in collaboration with the CWI (Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatics,
University of Amsterdam) group. It deals with the setting where two
separated parties, Alice and Bob, want to compute some function f(x,y)
depending on x (only known to Alice) and y (only known to Bob).
A simple scheme would be for Alice to send her x to Bob and then
let Bob do all the work by himself, but this may take a lot of bits of
communication and often there are much more clever schemes requiring
less communication. The field of communication complexity examines the
optimal number of bits that have to be communicated in order to compute
the function at hand. What happens if we generalize this setting to the
quantum world and allow Alice and Bob the use of quantum computers and
qubit-communication?
It turns out that some tasks can be solved with significantly less
communication if we allow such quantization. We have obtained similar
advantages by sticking to classical communication, but allowing Alice and
Bob the use of pre-established ``entangled'' qubits. Both approaches beat
the limits provable for just classical communication.
The above developments suggested the vision that all computation can
be enormously speeded up by quantum computers. But not so! CWI's
researchers obtained strong and general limitations of quantum computers
as well. Grover's algorithm is quadratically faster than classical search
algorithms. It was already known that such a quadratic speed-up is the best
quantum computers can achieve for searching a database, so exponential
speed-ups cannot be obtained for this problem.
CWI-researchers recently showed that the same holds for all problems
in the database-setting of Grover's algorithm: for all such problems,
quantum computers can be at most polynomially faster than classical
computers.
Limiting results like the above, of course, do not preclude exponential
speed-ups in different settings, like Shor's, or a clever future setting as yet
unknown. Exploring this potential of quantum computation remains an
exciting and important task for computer scientists and physicists alike.
6.2 How Quantum Computers Do It?
The above results are very promising, but so far mostly theory. How
about actually building quantum computers which can run the fast
algorithms like Shor's, Grover's, or CWI's? To date only very small
quantum algorithms (and slightly bigger quantum crypto devices) have
been implemented, but the physical realization of quantum computers is
still in its infancy [9].
The main problem is that quantum superpositions are extremely
vulnerable and any interactions with its environment will quickly cause
errors, which degrade the performance of the computer. Quantum versions
of error-correcting codes have been developed recently which to a large
extent solve this problem in theory, but not yet in the brittle practice of the
physical lab (let alone the brittle practice of our desktops).
This is related to development of Quantum Information Theory--the
quantum extension of classical information theory. CWI's group has
contributed to this research, and to related notions of the information in
individual quantum states: Quantum Kolmogorov Complexity.
Building large quantum computers presents formidable problems to
experimental physicists reminiscent of the initial barriers to classical
computing: unreliable components, physically large components, memory,
organization, communication, and programming. The theory of quantum
mechanics is currently extended, partially by CWI research, in particular
with respect to the algebraic analysis of ``quantum entanglement''--a vital
notion in many quantum algorithms, apparently not yet thoroughly
investigated in quantum theory.

6.3 Comparison of Classical and Quantum Computers

Classical computing relies, at its ultimate level, on principles

expressed by Boolean algebra, operating with a (usually) 7-mode logic
gate principle, though it is possible to exist with only three modes (which
are AND, NOT, and COPY). Data must be processed in an exclusive binary
state at any point in time - that is, either 0 (off / false) or 1 (on / true). These
values are binary digits, or bits. The millions of transistors and capacitors
at the heart of computers can only be in one state at any point. While the
time that the each transistor or capacitor need be either in 0 or 1 before
switching states is now measurable in billionths of a second, there is still a
limit as to how quickly these devices can be made to switch state. As we
progress to smaller and faster circuits, we begin to reach the physical limits
of materials and the threshold for classical laws of physics to apply [21].
The Quantum computer, by contrast, can work with a two-mode logic
gate: XOR and a mode we'll call QO1 (the ability to change 0 into a
superposition of 0 and 1, a logic gate which cannot exist in classical
computing). In a quantum computer, a number of elemental particles such
as electrons or photons can be used (in practice, success has also been
achieved with ions), with either their charge or polarization acting as a
representation of 0 and/or 1. Each of these particles is known as a quantum
bit, or qubit, the nature and behavior of these particles form the basis of
quantum computing. The two most relevant aspects of quantum physics are
the principles of superposition and entanglement.

Fig 1.4 Summary of Comparison between classical and quantum

Computing

7. PROJECTED BENEFITS OF QUANTUM COMPUTING

Quantum computing offers many potential benefits to the

organizations of tomorrow. This new conceptualization of computing
power will result in three main benefits: increases in computing power,
advances in security, and the ability for firms to use the sci-fi concept of
teleportation. Each of these opportunities can overcome the limitations of
the current computational paradigm [7].

 Quantum Computation: Increase in Computing Power

 Utilizing quantum parallelism, a quantum computer can
calculate or factor any huge number that is currently infeasible to be
analyzed on a classical computer. For example, factoring a number with
400 digits will take the existing fastest supercomputers billions of years to
accomplish. A quantum computer can obtain the answer within a year.
Therefore, quantum computers well serve the purpose of searching
information in unsorted databases or performing difficult mathematical
calculations that are impossible using semiconductor computers.

 Quantum Cryptology: Advances in Security

Linked with the first benefit (the increase in computing power)
then comes the possibility for advancements in computing security.
Quantum cryptography allows two parties to exchange public keys in a
private channel and thus secure privacy in quantum communication. The
technical aspect of quantum cryptography requires tremendous amount of
physics knowledge; the basic idea is that quantum mechanics will not allow
any eavesdropper to obtain the private key. Two legitimate parties will
reveal a random subset of the key bits and check the error rate to test for
eavesdropping. In so doing, even though eavesdropping will not be
prevented, any attempt, regardless how subtle and complicated, to break
into the communication channel will be detected.

 Teleportation
Perhaps the most astounding of the claimed for benefits of
quantum computing is teleportation, the favoured local transportation
mechanism in Star Trek episodes. Teleportation is the capability to make
an object or a person disintegrates in one place while a perfect replica
appears in another. In physics, teleportation has never been taken seriously
because of the uncertainty principle. According to the uncertainty principle,
the duplicating process will disturb or destroy the original objects; the more
an object is duplicated, the more it is destroyed. The detail information
regarding how the duplication is made and how the original object is
destroyed is unknown. Therefore, it will reach a point where one cannot
extract enough information from the original to make a perfect replica.

8. PROJECTED PROBLEMS OF QUANTUM COMPUTING

Even though the benefits sound promising, there are tremendous
obstacles still to be overcome. Some of the problems with quantum
computing are as follows [7]:
 Technology required is currently beyond our reach

 Not practical for certain applications (word processing, etc)

Three technical obstacles:
 De-coherence (quantum decay)
 Error correction
 Hardware architecture

9 .WHEN WILL QUANTUM COMPUTERS BE AVAILABLE?

It has been more than three decades since IBM Fellow, Rolf
Landauer, first put forward the theory of quantum information. A decade
later, David Deutsch and other research fellows proposed the concept of a
quantum computer. Since then progress in the technical development of
quantum computing has moved slowly. Currently, IBM has a three-bit
quantum computer while Alamos National Laboratory announced a seven-
bit NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) computer not long ago. Even
though IBM research fellows promise that a ten-bit computer will emerge
soon, a useful quantum computer will require at least hundreds and perhaps
thousands of qubits. Unfortunately, it appears almost impossible to develop
more than 10 qubits. This is because room temperature and other conditions
will be changed exponentially as the qubits are added resulting in disturbing
the atom’s quantum behaviour. As IBM Research Fellow Isaac Chuang, a
leading scientist in quantum computing research, said “Quantum mechanics
goes away when you look at it. So you have to make sure that the computer
is extremely well isolated from the rest of the world.” In other words, the
commercial development of quantum computing is still limited. The real
life use of quantum computers therefore will not affect our everyday life in
the near future. However, Chuang is very optimistic about it: “Quantum
computing begins where Moore’s law ends—about the year 2020, when
circuit features are predicted to be the size of atoms and molecules”. Other
scientists estimate the birth of commercial quantum computers will be in at
least another three decades.

10. CONCLUSION
It is important that making a practical quantum computing is
still far in the future. Programming style for a quantum computer will also
be quite different.
Development of quantum computer needs a lot of money. Even the best
scientists can’t answer a lot of questions about quantum physics. Quantum
computer is based on theoretical physics and some experiments are already
made. Building a practical quantum computer is just a matter of time.
Quantum computers easily solve applications that can’t be done with help
of today’s computers. This will be one of the biggest steps in science and
will undoubtedly revolutionize the practical computing world.

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