Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. I'm Stephen Carol and
Speaker 1: this is Here's Why, where we take one news story
Speaker 1: and explain it in just a few minutes with our
Speaker 1: experts here at Bloomberg. Move over, artificial intelligence. A new
Speaker 1: technological game changer is coming. Quantum computing, its supporters say,
Speaker 1: will deliver huge advancements and fields from drug development to
Speaker 1: financial modeling. And that's why governments as well as some
Speaker 1: of the world's biggest tech companies and venture capitalists are
Speaker 1: pouring billions of dollars into them.
Speaker 2: It's a totally different avenue.
Speaker 1: It's not just supercomputers but better or AI but more powerful.
Speaker 2: It's entirely different way of computing.
Speaker 1: Quantum computing.
Speaker 2: He's, without a dad, one of the top technologies that
Speaker 2: the United States needs to lead.
Speaker 3: If you suddenly lose that secrecy and that security, then
Speaker 3: it causes all sorts of vulnerabilities on a personal level,
Speaker 3: on a national level, from a security perspective, from a
Speaker 3: commercial perspective, and so you know, this is a big,
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 1: So here's why you need to understand quantum computing. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: reporter Isabell Award is with me for more Isabella. First
Speaker 1: of all, what is a quantum computer and how different
Speaker 1: is it to the computers that we know today.
Speaker 4: They are an emerging type of supercomputer which can solve
Speaker 4: problems today's machines can't, and this is because they process
Speaker 4: information in an entirely different way, exploiting the quirks of
Speaker 4: quantum mechanics, hence the name, which is the field of
Speaker 4: physics which governs microscopic materials. I'll give you an example
Speaker 4: of this difference in approach. Sarah was a traveling salesperson
Speaker 4: and I wanted to sell my war his intensities, and
Speaker 4: I wanted to use a computer to figure out the
Speaker 4: most efficient order to visit these cities. In a normal
Speaker 4: computer would one by one and then compare the three
Speaker 4: hundred and sixty thousand odd possibilities, whereas a quantum computer
Speaker 4: could simultaneously take all these routes into account and then
Speaker 4: could return the likely best answer almost instantly.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what can they be used for outside of
Speaker 1: travel planning?
Speaker 4: The age old optimization problem I just gave you does
Speaker 4: have some useful logistical and transportation efficiency applications, but they
Speaker 4: can also be used to simulate atomic behavior, which can
Speaker 4: accelerate drug discovery or material development. They can also model
Speaker 4: more complex systems with lots of dynamic interacting parts, you know,
Speaker 4: be at the climate or be at the economy, and
Speaker 4: across fields. They can enhance an expedite machine learning for
Speaker 4: artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: So who are the big players involved in developing quantum
Speaker 1: computers then, and crucially use putting money into it.
Speaker 4: IBM have really led the charge here, but Aws, Microsoft, Alphabetics,
Speaker 4: Google are all developing their own types of quantum chips
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: And it's not just big tech.
Speaker 4: Startups including Raghetti and Honeywell's Continuum are also competitive as well.
Speaker 4: As investors governments can vinced by the economic advantage that
Speaker 4: these machines, posts have poured billions into building them, none
Speaker 4: so much as China, who've invested fifteen billion US dollars
Speaker 4: they say so far, which is more than triple than
Speaker 4: any other country has.
Speaker 1: So how far away are we from getting quantum computers
Speaker 1: into widespread use? They exist in some form already.
Speaker 4: Yeah, IBM at aiming for twenty thirty three for widespread use,
Speaker 4: but some startups say that they're going to deliver useful
Speaker 4: machines by the end of this decade. The challenge here
Speaker 4: is that it's estimated that to have an actually useful
Speaker 4: machine a quantum commuter needs to be tens of thousands
Speaker 4: times larger than the current machines, and normally, because of
Speaker 4: the very delicate nature of their microscopic building blocks, the
Speaker 4: more you scale up, the more likely something is to
Speaker 4: go wrong.
Speaker 2: So that is really where Google actually broke ground.
Speaker 4: In December, you might have had their Willow chip made
Speaker 4: quite big news, not so much because of the size
Speaker 4: of their chip, but because as they scaled up the
Speaker 4: rate of errors was reduced. Still, even so, they say
Speaker 4: that useful machine is several years away, but that show
Speaker 4: of capability and actually being able to build these big
Speaker 4: machines imminently drove a rally in quantum stocks.
Speaker 1: When you say big machines, that makes me think that
Speaker 1: it's pretty unlikely that we're going to end up with
Speaker 1: quantum computers showing up in people's homes in the way
Speaker 1: that we've become used to having personal computers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: These are bulky, energy intensive, highly specialized machines that cost
Speaker 4: tens of millions to build.
Speaker 2: Quite a big house as well. Yeah, yeah, you're not
Speaker 2: going to have a quantum laptop.
Speaker 4: And actually even banks, for example, they won't have their
Speaker 4: own quantum computers. Instead, it's more likely that researchers would
Speaker 4: pay for run time on external machines.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned banks there, I mean, what would a
Speaker 1: world with quantum computers do for say, the banking industry.
Speaker 4: Across the board, research and development is going to be
Speaker 4: revolutionized as kind of previously impossible problems become solvable. And
Speaker 4: actually the banking industry is going to be one of
Speaker 4: the earlier industries to fill this impact.
Speaker 2: Just thinking of some examples.
Speaker 4: You know, I mentioned simulation, Well, risk could be simulated
Speaker 4: if far more detail. I mentioned optimization, Well, that could
Speaker 4: apply to collateral and commercial banking, or derivative pricing, or
Speaker 4: even portfolios in investment banking. And actually quantum algorithms have
Speaker 4: already been developed to optimize the latter.
Speaker 1: This really sounds like another massive technological revolution on the way.
Speaker 1: Are there downsides or risks to this technology?
Speaker 4: There are, like with any critical technology, if you know,
Speaker 4: a user with malintent gets access. So the consequence of
Speaker 4: their enormous compute is that in theory, hackers could use
Speaker 4: quantum computers to crack current cryptography and access sensitive data,
Speaker 4: and experts do see this as likely to happen within
Speaker 4: the next fifteen years or so. Of course, there's a
Speaker 4: huge personal data implication here. You can imagine the chaos
Speaker 4: that would be unleashed by accessing someone's Internet exchanges or
Speaker 4: financial transactions, and we have seen firms like Apple or
Speaker 4: telecoms companies take steps to protect users, but governments are
Speaker 4: actually more concerned by the commercial threat here, the idea
Speaker 4: that hostile states could steal intellectual property from foreign firms
Speaker 4: and copy drugs technology, et cetera without having to spend
Speaker 4: the billions on R and D in the process. So globally,
Speaker 4: companies are already being urged to update their encryption now
Speaker 4: in preparation for when these ultra powerful computers arrive.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Bloomberg reporter is Abelle Award for more explanations
Speaker 1: like this one from our team of twenty nine hundred
Speaker 1: journalists and analysts around the world. Search for Quick Take
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg website or Bloomberg Business app. I'm Stephen Carol.
Speaker 1: This is Here's why. I'll be back next week with more.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.