Submitted by upyourego t3_y76wdp in Futurology
The following submission statement was provided by /u/upyourego:
Rolls-Royce says it is investing heavily now in quantum technology despite no quantum computers being available that can perform the calculations to a necessary standard.
It is between 3 and ten years away from 'advantage' and longer still from 'supremacy' but Rolls-Royce says it has to start now as it can take longer than that to get the algorithms correct .
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/y76wdp/rollsroyce_says_a_combination_of_quantum/issth7g/
Eli5 quantum computing? I’m actually stupid though so take that into consideration.
Quantum computers taking over in ten years?
Sure, as long as we can get COBOL running on it…
Classiq creates an abstraction layer that lets you write algorithms in Python
>Eli5
I nearly had to ask to explain Eli5.
Quantum computing is a new way of solving maths problems. Instead of 1s and 0s (bits) to process information, it uses 0, 1 and any combination of 0 and 1 (qubits) - giving many more ways to solve those problems.
It basically means a quantum computer can solve incredibly complication problems in minutes that would take a supercomputer tens of thousands of years.
But right now they're useful in very limited ways - over time they'll become more useful until they can beat out supercomputers.
Clickbait Bullshit.
Quantum computing is never “taking over”. It is only beneficial for specific types of problems. It will make those problems solvable, in the sense that classical computers can’t solve these problems in useful time, ever, in theory (no matter how fast our classical computer is, it can never solve this specific type of problem in reasonable time, although it can solve any problem a quantum computer can given enough time).
So there will always be “classical computers”, for all the problems except the specific types that require quantum computers.
> over time they'll become more useful until they can beat out supercomputers.
Completely wrong. Quantum computers can never, even in principle, be faster than conventional computers for 99.99% of computing tasks. Quantum computers only might have an advantage for a very tiny subset of computing problems.
I was over simplifying - but yes I agree their use is limited to certain problems - but for the industries where they are useful the change will be substantial.
Also abstraction layers like those developed by Classiq can increase the number of usable applications
Quantum computing is never taking over.
There are certain computations that are exponentially more efficient with quantum computers, but most typical computations are actually more efficient with classical ones.
Quantum computers will allow us to solve problems that are basically unsolvable today, but they work very differently than classical ones and have different purposes.
Maybe they should stick to making engines. Quantum computing simply cannot "take over" , we don't even know if it has a useful place in computers tech at all.
Wouldn’t the applications follow the tech though? Maybe the applications are so limited today because engineers recognize brute force methods as inefficient and solve them via classical computing methods instead. If future computing problems are crafted to become structured more like quantum computing problems (evaluating millions of potential possibilities vs. attempting to craft a single solution up front), it seems there are a lot of applications possible.
The algorithms used in modelling fluid dynamics clearly have a place and testing on existing quantum hardware has shown there is a clear benefit/potential benefit to running certain algorithms on quantum hardware over supercomputers.
In this case Rolls-Royce will be using an abstraction layer built by Classiq that effectively lets developers write simulations that can be split between linear tasks on a quantum computer and non-linear tasks on a classical computer.
that s a pretty niche application, sure. But to claim that QC will "take over" from classical computing in our phones is just nonsense
Here’s the problem with quantum computing: yes you’re simultaneously evaluating countless potential “possibilities”, but at the end the QC only gives you the answer for one randomly chosen possibility. In that sense it’s far worse than just brute-forcing through every possibility with a classical computer, as at least with the classical computer you know which result corresponds with which possibility.
The sole advantage of the QC is that it can evaluate far more possibilities than can be classically brute-forced. But, again, when it spits out the answer, it erases the work done on all possibilities except the one randomly chosen by your measurement.
This means that at a minimum, you have to run the same problem many times on a QC to get a distribution of possible answers (since each individual answer is basically meaningless). Once you have a distribution, if you’re lucky you might see that certain solutions are more/less common that others, and this in itself may give you some insight to the problem you’re originally trying to solve.
TLDR computing anything with a QC is hugely inefficient compared to classical compute, the only problems you might even consider for a QC are those that simply can’t be classically computed in human timescales.
That is my bad. I phrased it badly to fit it in the character limit. What it means by takeover is before quantum takes over as dominant in solving those niche problems
This is how I’ve understood it.
Someday if the rate of improvement in “traditional” computers gets slow enough something else may gain enough funding to push it out (graphene or whatever else), but not any time soon and not quantum. Quantum computing a horse that’ll run one type of race extremely well but not all races.
So the question remains. What’s your problem?
"...to speed up simulations for fluid dynamics and new materials."
Are you willing to admit the clickbait was in your head and you should read the whole title?
Ha I think you might be right! That’s a very not optimal title. But I jumped the gun.
I was gonna say this too lol
Weird stuff happens at the quantum level. When photons are entangled space and distance have no effect on the communication. It happens everywhere and anywhere simultaneously. If you mess with one photon you can tell with the other. We will be able to encrypt and verified and decrypt all with 100% guaranteed non refutability and tamperproof.
This is accurate but I think the principal of Quantum Entanglement is distinct from the concept of Quantum Computing.
Yeah that doesn't explain anything. I don't think I'm stupid but no matter how many times I try to read about how quantum computers work I don't really get it. I've done some programming so it's not like I'm clueless about computers. There's a lot of people on this subreddit talking about how great quantum computers are and they seem to have about the same level of understanding of it as I do. This is just one of those topics where I've resigned to the fact that it's just something for people with advanced computer science and physics degrees to talk about.
I don’t have a degree - just a lot of experience writing about science and technology. I am doing an astrophysics degree as a mature student.
This article is useful for an explanation. But down the line you’ll interact with one using an abstraction layer. We don’t really write in assembly today, we use something like python and the same will apply to quantum.
I read the article but I must have entirely missed the explanation.
It’s not an easy one to explain But basically (over simplified) you’re manipulating atoms and the fact in quantum physics they can hold multiple states.
The reaction and changes create signals and combined these can be used to process calculations - solving complex equations.
upyourego OP t1_issth7g wrote
Rolls-Royce says it is investing heavily now in quantum technology despite no quantum computers being available that can perform the calculations to a necessary standard.
It is between 3 and ten years away from 'advantage' and longer still from 'supremacy' but Rolls-Royce says it has to start now as it can take longer than that to get the algorithms correct .