Quantum computers are closer than we think – certainly close enough that we risk being left out of the (much-touted) huge technological/governmental revolution they will bring. They are, of course, still far from household use. But…
American IBM, which has invested heavily in related research, announced at the beginning of last March that it will offer free (for now) access to the universal quantum-computing service it has created, a service supported by a “platform” for developers. The aim of IBM’s offer is to design applications that can “run” on quantum computers.
Τhere are no quantum computers yet in the “physical” sense—only research projects at a very early stage. IBM plans to build a 50-qubit quantum computing system in the coming years. For now, the “platform” it has offered since last year (quantum experience) is 5-qubit.
However, nothing is going to move forward by waiting for the machine to be built! Through simulations, developers who don’t want to disappear in the future must start preparing now; quantum programming will be completely different from what we’ve known so far.
So 40,000 Quantum Experience users have so far “run” 275,000 test applications. And the exponential continuation follows…
(In the photo: still from animation – by the University of Oxford – introductory to quantum computing…)