Describe at length what quantum computing is.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

One of the most fascinating (and complex) models of non-Von Neumann computing is called quantum computing. In a "regular" (i.e., Von Neumann) machine, an individual bit of data is always in a well-defined state-either a 0 or a 1. However, quantum computers are built using the quantum mechanical principle called superposition, in which a single bit of data, now called a qubit, can be either a 0 or a 1 or both a 0 and a 1 simultaneously! In theory, this would allow a quantum computer to examine every possible combination of input values in a single step, greatly speeding up the solution to complex problems. For example, 2 qubits could, at the same time, represent all combinations of two binary values: 00, 01, 10, and 11.In 2012, a company called D-Wave Systems, of British Columbia, Canada, built the first working model of a quantum computer, the D-Wave 1 with 128 qubits. A second prototype, the D-Wave 2 with 512 qubits, was launched in 2013. Soon after that, NASA, Google, the CIA, and a group of American and Canadian universities formed a research consortium to study how this radically new type of computer system could best be used.