- How is quantum computing used today
and what might be its use in the future?
Today, it continues to be categorized
in the prototype and experimental realm,
although it is already contributing to decisions
in a variety of important industries.
We'll look at where it might play a role
in the future too, but we must recognize
that this is largely a blind spot.
It's likely that the real, broad uses of quantum computing
will surprise us by being used in ways
that are completely unintuitive from today's perspective.
This has often been the nature of new technologies.
For example, did the inventors of the internet
or smartphones anticipate the remarkable ways
in which they are used today?
Let's look at what we do know.
First, we must acknowledge that, in its current form,
quantum computers are not widely adopted by industry.
You won't find one on a desk and it has no role yet
in mainstream productivity software like
enterprise resource planning, ERP,
and customer relationship management, CRM.
- Quantum is a really big compute
and so part of what I do is this matching process
of understanding what a quantum computer can do
and matching that up with the problems
that our enterprise customers and partners
across the industry have.
And that's the really the thing that we look for,
where do you have big compute?
As we look at the big areas that quantum
will have an impact in, problems in chemistry
or material science where you need
a level of accuracy in understanding a molecule
and you can't get that accuracy with classical compute,
so where the computation would take you
more than what was feasible.
So we're looking at problems that might take longer
than the lifetime of the universe
in seconds or hours on a quantum computer.
- [Instructor] Current users are largely limited
to big industries or research in academia.
Unsurprisingly, these entities include NASA,
Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Google,
and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Lockheed Martin and Airbus, large aviation enterprises,
are using their quantum computers for aeronautical modeling.
They are both, for example, researching and investing
in the optimization power of quantum
to aid in the routing and scheduling of aircraft.
For them, this has commercial benefits
in both time and costs.
Volkswagen and Daimler, two major automobile manufacturers,
are using their quantum computers
to find performance improvements by producing
better chemical compositions of electric vehicle batteries.
In addition, Volkswagen recently used quantum
to successfully develop and test an optimization algorithm
for the traffic flow of 10,000 taxis in Beijing.
BioGeM, a multinational biotechnology company
based in Massachusetts, is experimenting
with quantum-enabled optimization to predict
the positive effects of potential therapeutic approaches
while reducing negative side effects.
The pharmaceutical industry is particularly excited
by the possibility of quantum
to speed up drug research and development.
I'd suggest it's a potential promise
we should all be thrilled about.
Quantum computing has the potential
to impact many industries.
Here are some of the best uses for this technology
over the next few years.
- My think is that the first use
for if you have a quantum computer
would be used as a scientific instrument.
So, I consider quantum computer
is just would be like revolutionary
in the sense of what we have a telescope
and we look really far,
like we have a microscope,
where we look really small.
A quantum computer is just another scientistic instrument
for us to look into the quantum world.
We would have no idea how it would be.
So, I think the best,
the first is reasonable good quantum computer
would be really just let people play
a game or something
for people to get a sense
of what the quantum world really is.
I think that's a huge thing for humanity
to understand, to interact with the quantum world.
- There are certain chemical reactions
where they have huge technological applications
like nitrogen fixation, for example.
It's used for all the agricultural purposes
in fertilizers but the main reaction
that leads to this nitrogen fixation takes a lot of energy,
so basically agricultural companies
that produce these agricultural products,
they use more than a few percent
of world's consumption of electricity for this.
At the same time,
we know that there are certain bacterias
that are doing the same job
at room temperature, meaning they don't require any energy,
so we know that there are more efficient pathways
to solve this problem,
we just don't know how
and quantum computer can provide this pathway
to learn about these systems and solve these problems.
- For entrepreneurs, innovators,
and even existing organizations,
the opportunities appear to be abundant
and ripe for exploring.