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Speaker 1: Mike Dubuski is ABC News reporter out of New York

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Speaker 1: and a tech expert. Is time for our Tech Tuesday, Mike,

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Speaker 1: thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Hey

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Speaker 1: in Ai, of course, is the big story that we

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Speaker 1: have been following now for probably a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: how it's going to change everything how we deal with

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Speaker 1: the Internet and how we deal with research and computers.

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Speaker 1: But there's also something called quantum computing and that may

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Speaker 1: have just as big an influence. So, Mike, if you

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Speaker 1: would explain what quantum computing is so we have an

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Speaker 1: idea of where we're going.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, nothing like a little quantum physics to start

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Speaker 2: your morning, guys. But to answer the question of what

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Speaker 2: quantum computing is, we first have to understand what normal

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Speaker 2: computing is, what traditional computers and how they work do.

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Speaker 2: So you've all seen the matrix presumably right where the

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Speaker 2: green numbers come cascading down the screen at the beginning

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Speaker 2: of the movie, all the ones and zeros. That's binary code,

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Speaker 2: or to put it in computer terms, that's a bit. Right,

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Speaker 2: Each of those numbers is a bit that one or

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Speaker 2: a zero, And if you arrange enough bits in a line,

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Speaker 2: next to each other to make a very complicated process

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Speaker 2: very simple. That is the building blocks of computer technology. Right.

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Speaker 2: If you arrange you know, five ones and six zeros

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Speaker 2: next to each other, that means that the background on

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Speaker 2: your phone is read, or if you have it in

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Speaker 2: a different configuration, it might be blue. Again, an oversimplification

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Speaker 2: of how computers work, but it all basically comes back

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Speaker 2: to those ones and zeros, those bits. Quantum computing uses

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Speaker 2: an entirely different set of building blocks. They use what

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Speaker 2: are known as quantum bits or cubits as some of

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Speaker 2: the companies call them. These are not ones or zeros,

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Speaker 2: they're kind of both at the same time until you

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Speaker 2: run a program, at which point they become one or

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Speaker 2: the other. They become one or zero. They exist in

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Speaker 2: this quantum state. And this all it's worth mentioning requires

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Speaker 2: like one more quantum physics degree than I have in

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Speaker 2: order to properly wrap your mind around and fully explain.

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Speaker 2: But the takeaway what you really need to know about

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Speaker 2: quantum computers is that they're able to solve problems that

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Speaker 2: are way more complex than what our current computers can handle,

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Speaker 2: and that opens up a lot of opportunities in plenty

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Speaker 2: of different sectors, among them medicine, drug development, artificial intelligence,

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Speaker 2: the existing technology sector, and the financial services industry.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, when you talk about wrapping your mind around quantum,

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Speaker 1: the quantum theory, I think a lot of people, most

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Speaker 1: of us understand the bits zero ones. Most of us

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Speaker 1: have grown up with that as the basis for computing. Now,

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Speaker 1: the thought of zero ones existing at the same time

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Speaker 1: in the same place that one's a little tough to

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Speaker 1: wrap your mind around. That I don't get.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of mind bending, right, is this idea

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Speaker 2: that until you observe it, it is kind of both states, right,

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Speaker 2: And this is what quantum physics is all about. Is

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Speaker 2: when you get down to this infintesimally small, sort of

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Speaker 2: subatom level, things start to behave differently, right, things like

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Speaker 2: cause and effect is flipped, and things can exist in

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Speaker 2: two different places at exactly the same time but take

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Speaker 2: up exactly the same amount of space. Right. It's stuff

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Speaker 2: that like our brains don't normally go to. Yeah, it

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Speaker 2: requires some unlearning, but that's basically the type of thing

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Speaker 2: that we're dealing with here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. For example, it's raining outside at the same time

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Speaker 1: it's sunny.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, you know, up is up is the same

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Speaker 2: time it's down right. Here's cat is a classic example

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Speaker 2: here where you know, if there's a cat in the

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Speaker 2: trunk of your car, it is both dead and alive

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Speaker 2: until you open the trunk and discover what it is.

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Speaker 2: That's basically what we're dealing with here, is it is

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Speaker 2: both one end zero until you hit enter, until you

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Speaker 2: hit execute on your computer and run a program. It's

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Speaker 2: just up until that moment. It is some probability, some

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Speaker 2: you know, intermediary state between those two states of being.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, now I'll think about that while moment. Next commercial

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Speaker 1: in a couple of minutes, Tech Tuesday with Mike Dubuski,

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Speaker 1: who is the ABC News reporter, and he is either

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Speaker 1: in New York or he's not. And he went to

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Speaker 1: the IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center in New York and

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Speaker 1: he either walked in the door or he didn't. At

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Speaker 1: the same time as he explained quantum physics to us

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Speaker 1: and did a pretty good job. In the first segment,

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Speaker 1: Now you went to a quantum research center that's run

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Speaker 1: by IBM. What you see in how did it look?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we saw a quantum computer. I think this

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Speaker 2: is really helpful in just demonstrating exactly what this technology is, like,

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Speaker 2: what is it? What can I touch? What can I hold? Well?

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Speaker 2: These actually kind of harken back to sort of older

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Speaker 2: school computers. They take up full rooms. The unit that

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Speaker 2: we were looking at was taller than I am by

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Speaker 2: almost a factor of two. It had this sort of

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Speaker 2: aluminum finish on it, and it was shaped like a

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Speaker 2: giant X that had been placed into the ground. And

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Speaker 2: interestingly enough, the actual computer part of it, the chips,

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Speaker 2: what IBM calls their heron processors, are actually pretty small.

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Speaker 2: They're like a tiny little box, you know, approximately the

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Speaker 2: size of like a shoe box or a tissue box

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Speaker 2: or something like that. That's where the actual computing gets done.

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Speaker 2: So much of the rest of it, the stuff that

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Speaker 2: takes up the entire room, is cooling. Keeping these chips

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Speaker 2: cool because they generate so much heat because they work

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Speaker 2: so hard, is really difficult. And IBM says that in

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Speaker 2: order for this chip to function, they actually have to

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Speaker 2: get the temperature inside this computer down to almost absolute

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Speaker 2: zero zero kelvin, as it's known, and that's a really

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Speaker 2: tough process and the sort of cooling systems that are

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Speaker 2: able to do that, they call it the shandelier. It

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Speaker 2: actually looks like a giant schandelier, but it's actually all

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Speaker 2: these different brass and gold components that are able to

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Speaker 2: slip cooling material and coolant near this computer to make

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Speaker 2: sure that it operates at the proper temperature. In addition

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Speaker 2: to that, quantum computers don't have like a user interface

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Speaker 2: or an operating system. They don't run Windows, for example,

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Speaker 2: So that means that we need traditional computers nearby in

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Speaker 2: order to translate what it's giving us. Right, if we

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Speaker 2: give a quantum computer a problem to solve, we can't

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Speaker 2: really understand it in its normal state. We need another

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Speaker 2: computer there to sort of understand what it's giving us

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Speaker 2: and translated into something that we would understand. So that's

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Speaker 2: what they're working on at this facility, the Thomas J.

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Speaker 2: Watson Research Center in upstate New York. You might remember Watson,

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Speaker 2: which won Jeopardy many years ago. Yes, the same Watson.

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Speaker 2: It's an IBM computer. That is where they developed this

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Speaker 2: particular artificial intelligence technology. Now it seems like they are

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Speaker 2: moving into the quantum realm, and that's that's kind of

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Speaker 2: what they're focused on right now at this research center.

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Speaker 2: But it's This is kind of like somewhere between a

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Speaker 2: factory and a lab, right, This is where they figure

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Speaker 2: out how to build these things. These computers are already

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Speaker 2: up and running in Europe and in Japan. In fact,

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Speaker 2: this morning they just announced that they're launching a new

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Speaker 2: quantum computer in Spain that is largely similar to the

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Speaker 2: one that I got to look at.

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Speaker 1: So now these are telling are they selling these?

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Speaker 2: The idea is, if you're a company, for example, if

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Speaker 2: you're like a shipping company, right, and you have to

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Speaker 2: deal with these really complex logistics of moving your product

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Speaker 2: around the world, you can go to a quantum computing

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Speaker 2: facility and have it answer some of your questions. So

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Speaker 2: up until recently, a lot of the demonstrations of these

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Speaker 2: things were really theoretical and kind of high minded. For example,

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Speaker 2: last year, Google made a big announcement in the quantum

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Speaker 2: computing world where they said that their quantum computer was

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Speaker 2: able to solve a problem, a math problem that would

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Speaker 2: have taken a traditional computer and septillion years to solve. Right,

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Speaker 2: that is sort of their demonstration of how this technology works.

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Speaker 2: But like people aren't throwing those equations around on their

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Speaker 2: day to day basis, right, that's not something that is

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Speaker 2: really practically applicable to most people now, though IBM says

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Speaker 2: they're starting to move into the real world in a

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Speaker 2: more substantial way. Logistics is a big one, obviously, dealing

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Speaker 2: with really complex problems and a huge amount of variables

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Speaker 2: in that industry. Another one is the financial services sector.

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Speaker 2: Last month, HSBC announced that they used IBM's quantum computer,

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Speaker 2: the same kind of one that runs in New York,

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Speaker 2: to help predict bond trading far more accurately and far

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Speaker 2: more quickly than they had been able to before. This

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Speaker 2: was a pretty limited test. It happened in Europe, but

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Speaker 2: if IBM is to be believed pretty soon, that is

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Speaker 2: going to be your money that is going to be

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Speaker 2: traded back and forth using these quantum computers that run

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Speaker 2: these specific algorithms that go alongside it is sounding.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming that when you ask the question, you have

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Speaker 1: to ask an old school or a computer that we

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Speaker 1: know that then translates the question to the quantum computer.

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Speaker 1: Do I have that right? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Exactly, Okay, that's.

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Speaker 1: Pretty interesting stuff, say the Beast Mike. Then thank you

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Speaker 1: very much. No, I'm just saying thank you. I'm taking

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Speaker 1: you off the air. Thank you. Okay, you're done, goodbye.

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Speaker 1: Do something with yourself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, all right, make myself useful, take care,