You may have heard of the term Quantum Computers in the news. They are an entirely new process/technology to replace the computers we all know and love. Though in its infant stages, Quantum Computers promise to rewrite the book on how computing works and how data is handled. It is promised that we could see exponential increases in data read-write speeds and complex calculations.
“Where do I get mine?” you might be wondering. Well, though they have been around for a while, Quantum Computers are still very much in the developmental stages of their lifecycle. The biggest issue with the widespread adoption of this tech is error tolerance. A normal silicone-based PC has, on average, an error rate of one in one billion bits (Yes, that’s a Billion with a B!) Not surprising since this is the same fundamental technology we have been using for decades. The newest Quantum Computers have an error rate of one in every 1000 Quantum bits (or qubits).
Though it may be a while until you can sit at your desk in front of your new Quantum PC or Mac, there have been major technological strides. Multiple labs are working on fault tolerance and resiliency for these new computers. A firm out of Boston called QuEra Computing has successfully demonstrated a quantum PC using 48 qubits and only reported an error of 0.5 percent. This is significant as competitors have only been able to get this result using a limited number of qubits or having much higher error rates. QuEra Labs has released a roadmap for the future development of its platform. By next year, they feel confident they will have a 3000 qubit PC with fault tolerance in 2025. By 2026, they plan to release a 10000-qubit device with Fault tolerance that will rival the best supercomputers on the market today. If this roadmap comes to fruition, the not-so-distant future will see an explosion of technology running on this new platform.