August 8, 2024 • 28 mins
Unlock the secrets of the quantum realm with Dr. Thomas Wong, a leading physicist from Creighton University, as he guides us through the fascinating principles that distinguish quantum computing from classical methods. Learn how qubits, with their ability to exist in multiple states at once, revolutionize problem-solving efficiency and provide a sneak peek into the future of technology. Through Dr. Wong's vivid explanations, you'll gain a foundational understanding of quantum superposition and entanglement, concepts that are paving the way for groundbreaking advancements.
Ever wondered how quantum computing might disrupt the world of cryptography and AI? Dr. Wong takes us on an eye-opening journey through Shor's algorithm, revealing its potential to undermine our current cryptographic systems and the urgent need for new standards. We also explore the speculative yet thrilling prospects of quantum computing in artificial intelligence, while maintaining a balanced view of the current technological limitations and high error rates that slow progress. Get a glimpse into ongoing research and the eagerly anticipated day when quantum computers might fully realize their potential in AI.
Venture into the experimental world of quantum computing hardware with insights from Dr. Wong on the diverse approaches being undertaken by tech giants like Amazon and Google. Discover the intricacies of error handling in quantum systems and the innovative methodologies—from utilizing photons to individual atoms—that companies are pursuing. This episode highlights the multidisciplinary nature of this evolving field and emphasizes the importance of measured expectations, drawing intriguing parallels to the early days of classical computing. Join us as we wrap up with a forward-looking discussion on the optimism and long-term vision necessary for the continued evolution of quantum technology.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm not a physicist and I certainly don't play one
on television, but from myunderstanding is that, you know,
qubits can be linked togetherin a special way that really can
let them share informationinstantly, right?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's still probably faster to kick it than it is to
throw it or to run with it, andso, again, this is the idea
you're changing the rules of thegame.
In some cases, certain thingsare faster.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to Tech Travels hosted by the seasoned
tech enthusiast and industryexpert, steve Woodard.
With over 25 years ofexperience and a track record of
collaborating with thebrightest minds in technology,
steve is your seasoned guidethrough the ever-evolving world
of innovation.
Join us as we embark on aninsightful journey, exploring
(00:45):
the past, present and future oftech under Steve's expert
guidance.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hi, fellow travelers, to another exciting episode of
Tech Travels.
In today's episode we're goingto venture down the road of
talking about the wonderfulworld of quantum computing, and
quantum computing promises torevolutionize how we solve
complex problems and how itenables possibilities that are
just simply not possible withclassical computers.
And today we're thrilled tohave Dr Thomas Wong, a leading
(01:13):
physicist in the field, to joinus on this discussion and
discuss these groundbreakingachievements.
Dr Wong is a professor atCrichton University specializing
in quantum computing, and he'srenowned for his research on
quantum information searchmethods and innovative
contributions to quantumcomputer design.
He holds a PhD from UC SanDiego and serves on the
(01:36):
editorial board of the Journalof Quantum Information
Processing.
Tom, welcome to Tech Travels.
We're so honored to have you onthe show today.
Thank you, Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So wonderful to have you, so Tom, with to Tech
Travels we're so honored to haveyou on the show today.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thank you, steve, so wonderful to have you.
So, tom, with your extensivebackground in both physics and
computer science, can you helpus understand kind of just from
the start of explaining thefundamental principles of
quantum computing and how theydiffer from classical computing?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, so a traditional computer uses bits.
So your zeros and ones, andthat's it.
You just have two options.
Your bit is either zero or one,and that's it.
But a quantum bit actsdifferently.
In some sense it can be like acombination of zero or one, and
there's actually this greatgeometric way of picturing what
these quantum bits, or qubits,look like.
And so if you imagine a spherelike the Earth, you know a ball,
(02:25):
and imagine that the North Poleis your zero and the South Pole
is your one.
So with a traditional computerbit you can only be at the North
Pole or the South Pole.
You're either zero or one.
But with a quantum bit you canactually be anywhere on this
sphere.
So you could be halfway on theE equator.
You could be in halfway on theequator.
(02:45):
You could be in the northernhemisphere, you could be in the
southern hemisphere, even at aparticular latitude.
You can go around the earth andhave a different longitude.
And so you know, if you imaginenow you know if you're somewhere
on the surface of the earth,say on the equator, well, that's
neither zero nor one.
(03:06):
In some sense that's like halfzero and half one, because
you're halfway between the NorthPole and the South Pole.
If you're in the northernhemisphere, you're now more zero
than you are one because you'recloser to the North Pole and so
forth, and so a quantumcomputer actually acts like this
.
So with these bits you're nolonger constrained to being zero
or one, you're actually somecombination.
(03:28):
But one of the interestingthings is that when you actually
measure your quantum bit to seewhat the result is, then you
force it in a sense to take astand, so you force it to be
zero or one at that point.
So if your quantum bit was onthe equator, then with a 50-50
chance you'd get the North Poleor the South Pole.
If you're in the NorthernHemisphere, you're more likely
(03:49):
to get zero.
If you're in the SouthernHemisphere, you're more likely
to get one.
And so there's theseprobabilities that are involved
with a quantum bit, and the ideais that you want to tune your
quantum algorithm so that theprobability of getting the right
answer becomes high, and soessentially, a quantum bit just
has a very different unit ofinformation, and because it acts
(04:10):
differently, you're able to dodifferent things and in some
cases solve problems faster.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, and again it's like so qubits, they can be
linked together.
And again, I'm not a physicistand I certainly don't play one
on television, but from myunderstanding is that qubits can
be linked together in a specialway that really can let them
share information instantly,Right?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, so I think what you're talking about is quantum
entanglement.
So quantum entanglement is thisunique property that quantum
bits have, where you can havequantum bits where, even if you
separate them by long distances,when you measure one qubit,
that directly affects what theother qubit could be.
And so one of the interestingthings about this is that, even
(04:52):
though the measurement of onequbit can in some sense
instantaneously affect the otherqubit, you actually can't use
that to transmit informationfaster than the speed of light.
And so you know, unfortunatelyfor science fiction movies and
novels, you can't use quantummechanics to do an instantaneous
information transfer or, to youknow, talk to people across
(05:14):
galaxies instantly.
Yeah, but this idea of quantumentanglement, this is actually a
property that is utilized in alot of quantum algorithms and
quantum protocols, and so itallows you to do things like to
solve problems faster than youcould with a traditional
computer.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Right.
So you mentioned algorithms andunderstanding a little bit more
about the algorithms.
I think there's quantumalgorithms where you kind of use
the different types ofalgorithm versus traditional
right, or are they the same?
Can you walk me through alittle bit about understanding
what quantum algorithms might be?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah.
So I guess, to start off, youcan think of quantum computing
as being like a superset oftraditional computing.
So with a quantum computer youcan do everything that a
traditional computer can do, butthe idea is that it can do more
.
So with a traditional computer,typically, when you do
operations on these bits, youuse what are called logic gates.
So, for example, if you have anAND gate, what that would do is
(06:16):
, if you have, if both of yourbits that are going to this AND
gate are one, then the outputwould be 1.
So it's like both bits are 1,then the output will be 1.
, and if either bit is 0, thenthe output will be 0.
So, basically, you get bitsthat come in and then a bit or
(06:36):
bits that come out, but aquantum gate acts differently
because, again, these quantumbits can be in a superposition
or a combination of zero and one, like anywhere on this sphere,
and so because of this, the waythat these quantum gates act is
very different, and it acts insuch a way to ensure that your
probabilities make sense,essentially.
(06:57):
And so I think, maybe to takelike a step back, I think one
way of understanding quantumcomputing is that we're changing
the rules of the computer andjust like if you change the
rules of anything, say a sportlike soccer, if you change the
rules, then the sport can lookreally different and certain
(07:18):
plays on the field might alsocome out very differently.
So, for example, in soccergenerally you're not allowed to
use your hands.
That's why it's called footballin most other languages.
But if you change your rulesand say every player can now use
their hands, well, that's goingto look really different.
In some cases it'll be fasterto just like swat the ball out
of the air, to catch it, to runwith it.
But not everything is faster.
(07:39):
If you want to get the fielddown the, if you want to get the
ball down the field as quicklyas possible, it's still probably
faster to kick it than it is tothrow it or to run with it.
And so again, this is the ideaYou're changing the rules of the
game.
In some cases certain thingsare faster and so with a quantum
computer we're changing therules of the computer.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And in some cases certain things are faster.
What about real-worldapplications that are leveraging
things like quantum today?
How are they really different?
So I'm curious to kind ofexplore when is so putting it
into the tangible of what do wesee in the real world?
What problems does quantumsolve for us?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah.
So this is really interestingbecause, you know, quantum
computing is certainly a newerfield than our regular computers
.
We've been studying regularcomputers, how to build them,
what they're useful for, for amuch longer time than quantum
computers, and because of thatwe're still sorting out exactly
what problems they might beuseful for.
And so there's problems wherewe know for sure and there's
problems where we kind of havesome reasonable expectation or
(08:40):
some guesses but we're notentirely sure yet, because doing
the math to try to figure outwhat happens is very challenging
and you can't just test thealgorithms yet because we don't
have big enough good enoughquantum computers.
Right, with a traditionalcomputer, even things like with
AI, like a lot of areas of AI,don't actually have math proofs
to prove definitively that thisAI system works.
(09:03):
The reason we know that itworks is because people tried
programming it.
You know they tried trainingtheir models and it worked.
And so you know quantumcomputers are at the stage where
we haven't built good enoughquantum computers yet to test a
lot of these potentialapplications, and so in some
cases we don't know.
To give you a famous example ofsomething that we do know is
(09:23):
something called Shor'salgorithm for factoring numbers,
and so it turns out thattraditional computers have a lot
of difficulty factoring numbers.
So factoring means, like youfactor the number 15, that's
writing it as three times five.
So 15 is a very easy number tofactor, right?
21 is easy to factor it's threetimes seven, right?
People know that we have areally, really big number.
(09:45):
It's actually very hard ingeneral for a computer to factor
that, and that's actually thebasis for all of our currently
used public key cryptographysystems, which is basically how
we securely send information onthe internet.
So anytime you buy somethingfrom Amazon, you send your
credit card information over theinternet.
You're using public keycryptography in order to ensure
that your credit cardinformation remains safe, so
that only Amazon can view itwhen you send it to them.
(10:07):
But quantum computers canactually factor quickly, which
means that it would break publickey cryptography.
But don't worry, there'sactually a replacement
algorithms that are in the worksthat are going to roll out any
day now, and so this is a veryconcrete problem that factoring
numbers is something thatquantum computer can do quickly,
(10:28):
whereas it seems like classicalcomputers cannot.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Right.
So you mentioned Shor'salgorithm.
So I think for most listenersout there is, you know, if
they're using something likeAES-256, I think it's probably
what with using classicalcomputers.
It will probably take a billionyears to try to crunch that
number, because it's what is it?
256 is something to the 256power, what is it?
Again, it's a crazy number,right.
But with quantum is thatthey're saying?
(10:54):
Is that you know, the morepeople I speak to in security,
you know they're always talkingabout quantum computing,
breaking AES-256.
But then also they're alsotalking about Shor's algorithm,
where you know it's leveragingthe time to be able to break
that within what?
Eight to 10 years.
But then even some people arespeculating that it could
possibly be a year or two,depending upon the technology
(11:15):
advancement.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, I think so, if you look at what the US
government has been doing toplan for this.
Because, you know, shor'salgorithm was invented in the
mid nineties, so it's been 30years now, right?
So this is no surprise thatquantum computers would be able
to do this, and so you know,part of the reason why the
National Institute of Standardsand Technology, nist, has been
(11:39):
working on standardizations forthe next generation of
cryptography algorithms toreplace AES is because you know,
like because we have known thatthis is coming right.
And so the idea is that youknow you don't need your
information to be safe forever,right?
Like I don't need my creditcard number to be safe for 30
years because I get a new creditcard number every I don't know
(12:02):
handful of years, right?
Or my credit card expires, Iget a new one with a new number,
and so you know a lot of theinformation that we send on the
internet.
There's some time value to it,you value to it.
After 30 years, all thisinformation is out of date.
If someone sees it, it doesn'treally matter in terms of
financial records.
And so the idea is that we arestarting to transition our
cryptography systems now so thatwhen quantum computers are
(12:25):
available.
Whenever they say 30 years, Idon't know exactly.
No one knows.
The idea is that in 30 yearstime, if we decrypt the
information now, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
That then then, like that, information is no longer
valuable so the life of the datais basically almost kind of
like end of life at that point,like it's almost irrelevant,
right?
Credit card numbers change, youknow your address might change,
um, your phone number mightchange.
So most of that data isprobably kind of uh data that
you could, you could safely saywe could probably do with that,
because it might be kind of oldor stale data.
(12:56):
But you mentioned, you know, avery interesting topic around.
You know how quantum computingis impacting fields like
cryptography.
How do we see it impacting therealm around artificial
intelligence and kind of theemergence of, you know, ai and
large language models.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, so this is where I mentioned that you know
there's kind of two types ofalgorithms the ones that we know
work better on a quantumcomputer and those where we
don't know.
And AI applications for quantumcomputing would be in that
second camp of where we justdon't know right.
There's some people who kind ofthink, like intuitively, that
quantum computers, because theycan be in these combinations or
superpositions of zero and one,maybe they can somehow do
(13:38):
computation on large amounts ofdata better.
But ultimately we don't know.
And you know there are lots ofscientists who are working on
the math to try to figure outwhat would happen.
We're trying to do simulationson like supercomputers or on
prototype small quantumcomputers.
But it's also possible that wemay not know until we have a big
(13:59):
enough computer to actually tryit.
And, like I mentioned, evenwith normal AI on a normal
computer, in many cases we don'tknow if it's going to work
until we actually try it.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So what's being?
That's very interesting, is it?
I wonder, kind of what'shindering that or what would be
the leap forward to be able toget more of the AI and the
algorithms into using somethinglike quantum computing?
Is it just the understanding ofthe quantum computing type, of
different computing powers withthe algorithm, or is it just we
(14:32):
just don't have enough quantumcomputing to test all the
algorithms with AI?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, so I think the biggest challenge that our
quantum computers are not goodenough yet and so all computers
suffer from errors.
So in a classical computer thatwould be one of your bits, like
a zero accidentally becoming aone right, maybe there's some
voltage issue or something, orlike a cosmic ray can actually
come and hit your storage deviceand can flip a bit from a zero
to a one or one to a zero.
(14:59):
And so there's all sorts ofways that traditional computers
will correct for these errors.
Or for example I don't know howold your listeners are, but
remember CDs, whatever you usefor music or for data.
One of the issues is that it'slike if your CD gets scratched
right, then it might mess upyour music.
But actually in a lot of casesif you get a scratch on your CD
(15:21):
it's actually still okay, likeit still plays all right, and
that's because there's differentencodings that are used for the
music.
So that way if, even if some ofyour bits get flipped or
damaged, it can still infer fromthe other bits what that error
was and how to fix it.
And so with quantum computers,they also suffer from errors,
and the challenge is that theyare a lot more sensitive, and so
(15:45):
if you go back to this sphereor this ball analogy, for a
classical error you have to gofrom the North Pole, your zero,
all the way to the South Pole,201, or vice versa, in order to
constitute an error.
But since a quantum bit can beanywhere on the sphere, if you
just move a little bit on thatsphere, that's an error, and so
(16:06):
it's much more vulnerable now,because any kind of movement on
that sphere constitutes adifferent qubit versus a giant
leap from the North Pole and theSouth Pole, and so quantum
computers are a lot morevulnerable to errors, and
unfortunately, there are methodsto try to encode this
information in such a way thatif you have an error you can
(16:29):
find it and fix it.
But your hardware needs to begood enough in order to
implement those strategies, andthe hardware is not good enough
yet.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Interesting.
I mean it's interesting.
I mean it seems like they're alittle bit more fragile, more
delicate than classicalcomputers.
Right, it seems like thetechnology is so advanced, but
you mentioned this they're notgood enough, which is
interesting because you wouldthink that you would have all of
the best hardware to be able tomake the quantum computer work
(16:59):
right, as I mean I know thatNVIDIA, google, amazon, they've
all kind of got some elements ofquantum computing.
Are there different elements ofquantum computing across
different providers like Amazon,Google, or are they all pretty
much all playing from the samefield of same hardware, same
type of operating system?
Is it different or is it thesame?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It is different, and this is one of the interesting
things about quantum computing,which is that it's not
necessarily the same type ofhardware that we're using for
traditional computers, althoughit could be.
Essentially, to build a quantumcomputer, to have a quantum bit
, you need to take any physicalsystem that inherently behaves
according to the laws of quantummechanics.
(17:41):
So just to maybe throw out someexamples that people might have
heard of before.
So, for example, with light,people might have heard of a
photon.
So a photon is commonly calledlike a particle of light, and so
light has a property which iscalled a polarization.
So you may have sunglasses thatare polarized, that will help
cut out glare and things likethat.
(18:01):
And so an individual photon,this single particle of light,
also has polarization, butbecause it's a single particle,
it behaves according to the lawsof quantum mechanics, and so
instead of having a polarizationthat is solely vertical or
solely horizontal, it can be ina superposition or a combination
of vertical and horizontal, andwhen you measure it, you force
(18:24):
it into being vertical orhorizontal, and so you can think
of these two polarizations,vertical and horizontal, as
being your zero and your one,and so there are some scientists
and companies that are pursuingquantum computing, using
photons, for example.
There are others that are usingsuperconducting circuits, where
you have current in this, inthis circuit, and if you get it
(18:49):
very, very cold, like at amillikelvin, so you know just
fractions of a degree aboveabsolute zero, it turns out that
this starts to act in a quantummechanical way and you can
actually use that as yourquantum bit.
There are people that are usingindividual atoms as their
quantum bit and different likeenergy levels of the atom.
You're looking, people arelooking at trapped ions, so
(19:13):
those are charged atoms.
There are approaches using thespin of an electron, so this is
like the Ingram momentum of anelectron, which again is
something that behaves accordingto the laws of quantum
mechanics.
And so there are so manydifferent approaches and more
than I've mentioned here,because not one of these
(19:36):
approaches has won yet hasdemonstrated that that is the
approach to go and this kind ofmimics the evolution of our
traditional computers.
Right, like before transistors,there are all sorts of different
approaches and people had todiscover, like, what are better
ways to build computers?
You can start with vacuum tubesand relays and things like that
and eventually, once thetransistor was developed and
(19:59):
then further matured over thecourse of decades.
Now we have our transistorbased CPUs, right that that are
amazing or small.
You know fast and everything.
And so you know in some sensewe haven't reached a point of
having like the quantum versionof a of a transistor.
And even when we do, you knowit may still take decades to
mature it to the point that youknow we have our amazing
(20:21):
computing devices in our pockets, in our cell phones.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It's interesting.
What do you, what are youseeing from the student
perspective of students thatyou're teaching at the
university?
What are some of the thingsthat they need to understand
getting into a program wherethey're understanding quantum
computing?
And what are some of the thingsthat they need to understand
getting into a program wherethey're understanding quantum
computing, and what are some ofthe things that they're learning
as they're going through thejourney of understanding it?
From the university perspective, I'd be interested to know kind
(20:45):
of what happens kind of in theclassroom.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, I would say that students can have a place
in quantum computing from a verywide range of backgrounds, just
like with traditional computing.
Computing from a very widerange of backgrounds, just like
with traditional computing.
Like, there's no one who reallyis a master of every single
part of a computer.
Right, you have software people, you have hardware people.
Even within those twodesignations, there's so much
level of expertise right when,and then even beyond that like
(21:12):
technical side, there's thepeople who work in the business
side, right, in the marketingand sales.
You know everything.
Right, there's this wholeecosystem.
Then there's all the additionaltechnologies that support, uh,
computers, um, and so you know,I want to just, you know,
emphasize that with quantumcomputing it's going to be
similar.
Right, there's people who aregoing to work on the software
(21:34):
side.
There's going to people whowork up in the hardware side.
Even on the software side, youhave people who are maybe
working more on the math and thetheory of things.
You have people who are goingto work on the software side.
There's going to be people whowork on the hardware side.
Even on the software side, youhave people who are maybe
working more on the math and thetheory of things.
You have people who are workingmore on coding and programming
challenges on the hardware side.
Another thing with quantumcomputers is that quantum
computers don't exist in avacuum.
It's not like you just have aquantum computer To build a
(22:06):
quantum computer.
You also use classicalcomputers to be adjusting all of
the knobs and voltages andlasers and things like that that
are going into controllingthese quantum mechanical systems
.
And so, just like traditionalcomputing is very diverse in the
backgrounds that people have,whether it's engineering or
physics or math, computerscience, chemistry, business all
these various fields Quantumcomputing is going to be similar
and so, yeah.
So in the field I see studentsthat come from a traditional
(22:27):
physics background who are doingthe research, but there's also
a lot of people who come from,say, math or engineering or
computer science or people whoare on the business side, who
are interested in how emergingtechnologies might affect
business.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Interesting.
So it seems like it's kind oflike you know, like you
mentioned, in today's world isthat you have a lot of people
from different disciplines,different spaces of expertise
all kind of coming together tobe able to kind of work on maybe
a common problem, where theyall work together as a team to
solve problems.
And I see this a lot across thedifferent industries, with
encompassing artificialintelligence.
You have a lot of people fromdifferent backgrounds and
(22:59):
different technical andnon-technical disciplines doing
some very interesting things.
What are you and kind ofshifting a little bit what are
you seeing kind of from thefuture perspective of what would
you like to see happen in thequantum computing space?
From the technologistperspective and some of the
folks in my space aretechnologists what are you
looking for from thetechnologist in terms of
(23:21):
innovation or something thatmight be new, that you would see
advance quantum computing?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I would say that approaching quantum computing
from the perspective that thereis still a lot of basic science
and research to be done, I thinkyou know, sometimes people like
to hype up emergingtechnologies which is true of
any emerging technology, notjust quantum, but certainly
quantum is guilty as well, wherepeople might say things like
(23:49):
you know, quantum is going tocure cancer next year.
You know it's going to solveclimate change next year, right?
These are some of the claimsthat that sometimes come out,
and you know I would say thatyou know, between the like, the
like, the two applications, theones that we know quantum
computers can do, and thosewhere people are kind of like,
speculating or maybe have aguess, I would say those are
(24:10):
very much more on the the guessor the speculating side, right,
sometimes people can be veryoptimistic, and so, like I
mentioned earlier, even once thetransistor was invented, it
still took many decades to reachthe point where we had CPUs
that are built using transistors, and so you know there's still
a lot of work to be done.
I think there's a famous quote Ican't remember verbatim, but to
(24:32):
paraphrase, it's basicallysomething along the lines that
we tend to overestimate thenear-term consequences of new
technologies but underestimatetheir ramifications long-term.
And so you know, I think,long-term, yes, quantum
computers will have a hugeimpact on our society, just like
traditional computers basicallytouch every aspect of life now.
(24:53):
But you know, and I think youknow, it's very hard for us to
just to understand just how bigthat impact could potentially be
, just like the early creatorsof computers, you know, didn't
understand that we would havethis conversation now, you know,
over the internet, using ourcomputers.
But you know, in the near term,I think, we tend to
(25:15):
overestimate how much work stillneeds to be done.
And so, yeah, so in terms ofyou know, what can technologists
bring, I think, just having anunderstanding that there is
still a lot of basic work to bedone.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
but there is also a place for people to start
thinking about you know what isyour perspective on kind of what
you're seeing in the landscapein the next three to five years,
your predictions.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So I think there's going to be a lot of continued
growth from various sectors inquantum computing.
Certainly, in the past handfulof years, the rise of like
industry involvement in quantumcomputing has been huge right
computing has been huge right.
Historically, quantum computinghas been mostly in the academic
setting that people have beenthinking about and doing the
basic research on what mightquantum computers do and how one
(26:07):
might begin to build them.
But now that we're gettingcloser to quantum computers
being useful, the investmentfrom companies, both in the
hardware and the software, hasgrown a lot, and so I'm
expecting to see a lot more workon that.
But, like I mentioned earlier,like we still don't know which
approach is the best, and so Ithink there's still going to be
a lot of you know, announcementsfrom these different camps and
(26:30):
different approaches saying likeyou know, we've reached this
new breakthrough, we've reachedthat new breakthrough, but you
know I breakthrough, but we'renot going to know really which
one is going to win out, and Ithink there's still going to be
quite a bit of work and it mightbe that there's going to be
some completely new approachthat people haven't tried yet
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
It's going to be interesting to see what happens
in the next three to five years.
I think that there's a lot ofhype going on, especially with
artificial intelligence.
We're kind of in that hypecycle right now A lot of
excitement's a lot of hype goingon, especially with artificial
intelligence.
That you know we're kind of inthat hype cycle right now A lot
of excitement, a lot ofenthusiasm and, to your point,
kind of around quantum is thatthere's also a lot of excitement
.
Probably a lot of you know overover excitement where there's
there's not a lot of.
There's not a lot there therejust yet, but it how the
(27:12):
landscape plays out.
Tom, I really can't thank youagain for coming on the show.
Your insights has been veryinvaluable to our listeners and
thank you for enlightening us onthis topic and we really gained
a lot of insight from yourexperience on this topic.
Any final thoughts on where wecan follow you?
Keep up to date with yourlatest journeys and papers and
(27:33):
things that you publish.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, if you want to see more about my work, you can
go to my website atthomaswongnet.
So it's just my name,thomaswongnet.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And you also have an X account, right, I do.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yes, and you can find my handle on my website.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Wonderful.
Thanks again, tom, for yourwonderful thoughts on this topic
and thank you to all of ourlisteners.
Thank you for tuning in and, asalways, fellow travelers, stay
curious, stay informed.
Most of all, happy travels,thanks.
I'm not a physicist and I certainly don't play one
on television, but from myunderstanding is that, you know,
qubits can be linked togetherin a special way that really can
let them share informationinstantly, right?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's still probably faster to kick it than it is to
throw it or to run with it, andso, again, this is the idea
you're changing the rules of thegame.
In some cases, certain thingsare faster.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to Tech Travels hosted by the seasoned
tech enthusiast and industryexpert, steve Woodard.
With over 25 years ofexperience and a track record of
collaborating with thebrightest minds in technology,
steve is your seasoned guidethrough the ever-evolving world
of innovation.
Join us as we embark on aninsightful journey, exploring
(00:45):
the past, present and future oftech under Steve's expert
guidance.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hi, fellow travelers, to another exciting episode of
Tech Travels.
In today's episode we're goingto venture down the road of
talking about the wonderfulworld of quantum computing, and
quantum computing promises torevolutionize how we solve
complex problems and how itenables possibilities that are
just simply not possible withclassical computers.
And today we're thrilled tohave Dr Thomas Wong, a leading
(01:13):
physicist in the field, to joinus on this discussion and
discuss these groundbreakingachievements.
Dr Wong is a professor atCrichton University specializing
in quantum computing, and he'srenowned for his research on
quantum information searchmethods and innovative
contributions to quantumcomputer design.
He holds a PhD from UC SanDiego and serves on the
(01:36):
editorial board of the Journalof Quantum Information
Processing.
Tom, welcome to Tech Travels.
We're so honored to have you onthe show today.
Thank you, Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
So wonderful to have you, so Tom, with to Tech
Travels we're so honored to haveyou on the show today.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thank you, steve, so wonderful to have you.
So, tom, with your extensivebackground in both physics and
computer science, can you helpus understand kind of just from
the start of explaining thefundamental principles of
quantum computing and how theydiffer from classical computing?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, so a traditional computer uses bits.
So your zeros and ones, andthat's it.
You just have two options.
Your bit is either zero or one,and that's it.
But a quantum bit actsdifferently.
In some sense it can be like acombination of zero or one, and
there's actually this greatgeometric way of picturing what
these quantum bits, or qubits,look like.
And so if you imagine a spherelike the Earth, you know a ball,
(02:25):
and imagine that the North Poleis your zero and the South Pole
is your one.
So with a traditional computerbit you can only be at the North
Pole or the South Pole.
You're either zero or one.
But with a quantum bit you canactually be anywhere on this
sphere.
So you could be halfway on theE equator.
You could be in halfway on theequator.
(02:45):
You could be in the northernhemisphere, you could be in the
southern hemisphere, even at aparticular latitude.
You can go around the earth andhave a different longitude.
And so you know, if you imaginenow you know if you're somewhere
on the surface of the earth,say on the equator, well, that's
neither zero nor one.
(03:06):
In some sense that's like halfzero and half one, because
you're halfway between the NorthPole and the South Pole.
If you're in the northernhemisphere, you're now more zero
than you are one because you'recloser to the North Pole and so
forth, and so a quantumcomputer actually acts like this
.
So with these bits you're nolonger constrained to being zero
or one, you're actually somecombination.
(03:28):
But one of the interestingthings is that when you actually
measure your quantum bit to seewhat the result is, then you
force it in a sense to take astand, so you force it to be
zero or one at that point.
So if your quantum bit was onthe equator, then with a 50-50
chance you'd get the North Poleor the South Pole.
If you're in the NorthernHemisphere, you're more likely
(03:49):
to get zero.
If you're in the SouthernHemisphere, you're more likely
to get one.
And so there's theseprobabilities that are involved
with a quantum bit, and the ideais that you want to tune your
quantum algorithm so that theprobability of getting the right
answer becomes high, and soessentially, a quantum bit just
has a very different unit ofinformation, and because it acts
(04:10):
differently, you're able to dodifferent things and in some
cases solve problems faster.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, and again it's like so qubits, they can be
linked together.
And again, I'm not a physicistand I certainly don't play one
on television, but from myunderstanding is that qubits can
be linked together in a specialway that really can let them
share information instantly,Right?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, so I think what you're talking about is quantum
entanglement.
So quantum entanglement is thisunique property that quantum
bits have, where you can havequantum bits where, even if you
separate them by long distances,when you measure one qubit,
that directly affects what theother qubit could be.
And so one of the interestingthings about this is that, even
(04:52):
though the measurement of onequbit can in some sense
instantaneously affect the otherqubit, you actually can't use
that to transmit informationfaster than the speed of light.
And so you know, unfortunatelyfor science fiction movies and
novels, you can't use quantummechanics to do an instantaneous
information transfer or, to youknow, talk to people across
(05:14):
galaxies instantly.
Yeah, but this idea of quantumentanglement, this is actually a
property that is utilized in alot of quantum algorithms and
quantum protocols, and so itallows you to do things like to
solve problems faster than youcould with a traditional
computer.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Right.
So you mentioned algorithms andunderstanding a little bit more
about the algorithms.
I think there's quantumalgorithms where you kind of use
the different types ofalgorithm versus traditional
right, or are they the same?
Can you walk me through alittle bit about understanding
what quantum algorithms might be?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah.
So I guess, to start off, youcan think of quantum computing
as being like a superset oftraditional computing.
So with a quantum computer youcan do everything that a
traditional computer can do, butthe idea is that it can do more
.
So with a traditional computer,typically, when you do
operations on these bits, youuse what are called logic gates.
So, for example, if you have anAND gate, what that would do is
(06:16):
, if you have, if both of yourbits that are going to this AND
gate are one, then the outputwould be 1.
So it's like both bits are 1,then the output will be 1.
, and if either bit is 0, thenthe output will be 0.
So, basically, you get bitsthat come in and then a bit or
(06:36):
bits that come out, but aquantum gate acts differently
because, again, these quantumbits can be in a superposition
or a combination of zero and one, like anywhere on this sphere,
and so because of this, the waythat these quantum gates act is
very different, and it acts insuch a way to ensure that your
probabilities make sense,essentially.
(06:57):
And so I think, maybe to takelike a step back, I think one
way of understanding quantumcomputing is that we're changing
the rules of the computer andjust like if you change the
rules of anything, say a sportlike soccer, if you change the
rules, then the sport can lookreally different and certain
(07:18):
plays on the field might alsocome out very differently.
So, for example, in soccergenerally you're not allowed to
use your hands.
That's why it's called footballin most other languages.
But if you change your rulesand say every player can now use
their hands, well, that's goingto look really different.
In some cases it'll be fasterto just like swat the ball out
of the air, to catch it, to runwith it.
But not everything is faster.
(07:39):
If you want to get the fielddown the, if you want to get the
ball down the field as quicklyas possible, it's still probably
faster to kick it than it is tothrow it or to run with it.
And so again, this is the ideaYou're changing the rules of the
game.
In some cases certain thingsare faster and so with a quantum
computer we're changing therules of the computer.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And in some cases certain things are faster.
What about real-worldapplications that are leveraging
things like quantum today?
How are they really different?
So I'm curious to kind ofexplore when is so putting it
into the tangible of what do wesee in the real world?
What problems does quantumsolve for us?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah.
So this is really interestingbecause, you know, quantum
computing is certainly a newerfield than our regular computers
.
We've been studying regularcomputers, how to build them,
what they're useful for, for amuch longer time than quantum
computers, and because of thatwe're still sorting out exactly
what problems they might beuseful for.
And so there's problems wherewe know for sure and there's
problems where we kind of havesome reasonable expectation or
(08:40):
some guesses but we're notentirely sure yet, because doing
the math to try to figure outwhat happens is very challenging
and you can't just test thealgorithms yet because we don't
have big enough good enoughquantum computers.
Right, with a traditionalcomputer, even things like with
AI, like a lot of areas of AI,don't actually have math proofs
to prove definitively that thisAI system works.
(09:03):
The reason we know that itworks is because people tried
programming it.
You know they tried trainingtheir models and it worked.
And so you know quantumcomputers are at the stage where
we haven't built good enoughquantum computers yet to test a
lot of these potentialapplications, and so in some
cases we don't know.
To give you a famous example ofsomething that we do know is
(09:23):
something called Shor'salgorithm for factoring numbers,
and so it turns out thattraditional computers have a lot
of difficulty factoring numbers.
So factoring means, like youfactor the number 15, that's
writing it as three times five.
So 15 is a very easy number tofactor, right?
21 is easy to factor it's threetimes seven, right?
People know that we have areally, really big number.
(09:45):
It's actually very hard ingeneral for a computer to factor
that, and that's actually thebasis for all of our currently
used public key cryptographysystems, which is basically how
we securely send information onthe internet.
So anytime you buy somethingfrom Amazon, you send your
credit card information over theinternet.
You're using public keycryptography in order to ensure
that your credit cardinformation remains safe, so
that only Amazon can view itwhen you send it to them.
(10:07):
But quantum computers canactually factor quickly, which
means that it would break publickey cryptography.
But don't worry, there'sactually a replacement
algorithms that are in the worksthat are going to roll out any
day now, and so this is a veryconcrete problem that factoring
numbers is something thatquantum computer can do quickly,
(10:28):
whereas it seems like classicalcomputers cannot.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Right.
So you mentioned Shor'salgorithm.
So I think for most listenersout there is, you know, if
they're using something likeAES-256, I think it's probably
what with using classicalcomputers.
It will probably take a billionyears to try to crunch that
number, because it's what is it?
256 is something to the 256power, what is it?
Again, it's a crazy number,right.
But with quantum is thatthey're saying?
(10:54):
Is that you know, the morepeople I speak to in security,
you know they're always talkingabout quantum computing,
breaking AES-256.
But then also they're alsotalking about Shor's algorithm,
where you know it's leveragingthe time to be able to break
that within what?
Eight to 10 years.
But then even some people arespeculating that it could
possibly be a year or two,depending upon the technology
(11:15):
advancement.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, I think so, if you look at what the US
government has been doing toplan for this.
Because, you know, shor'salgorithm was invented in the
mid nineties, so it's been 30years now, right?
So this is no surprise thatquantum computers would be able
to do this, and so you know,part of the reason why the
National Institute of Standardsand Technology, nist, has been
(11:39):
working on standardizations forthe next generation of
cryptography algorithms toreplace AES is because you know,
like because we have known thatthis is coming right.
And so the idea is that youknow you don't need your
information to be safe forever,right?
Like I don't need my creditcard number to be safe for 30
years because I get a new creditcard number every I don't know
(12:02):
handful of years, right?
Or my credit card expires, Iget a new one with a new number,
and so you know a lot of theinformation that we send on the
internet.
There's some time value to it,you value to it.
After 30 years, all thisinformation is out of date.
If someone sees it, it doesn'treally matter in terms of
financial records.
And so the idea is that we arestarting to transition our
cryptography systems now so thatwhen quantum computers are
(12:25):
available.
Whenever they say 30 years, Idon't know exactly.
No one knows.
The idea is that in 30 yearstime, if we decrypt the
information now, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
That then then, like that, information is no longer
valuable so the life of the datais basically almost kind of
like end of life at that point,like it's almost irrelevant,
right?
Credit card numbers change, youknow your address might change,
um, your phone number mightchange.
So most of that data isprobably kind of uh data that
you could, you could safely saywe could probably do with that,
because it might be kind of oldor stale data.
(12:56):
But you mentioned, you know, avery interesting topic around.
You know how quantum computingis impacting fields like
cryptography.
How do we see it impacting therealm around artificial
intelligence and kind of theemergence of, you know, ai and
large language models.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, so this is where I mentioned that you know
there's kind of two types ofalgorithms the ones that we know
work better on a quantumcomputer and those where we
don't know.
And AI applications for quantumcomputing would be in that
second camp of where we justdon't know right.
There's some people who kind ofthink, like intuitively, that
quantum computers, because theycan be in these combinations or
superpositions of zero and one,maybe they can somehow do
(13:38):
computation on large amounts ofdata better.
But ultimately we don't know.
And you know there are lots ofscientists who are working on
the math to try to figure outwhat would happen.
We're trying to do simulationson like supercomputers or on
prototype small quantumcomputers.
But it's also possible that wemay not know until we have a big
(13:59):
enough computer to actually tryit.
And, like I mentioned, evenwith normal AI on a normal
computer, in many cases we don'tknow if it's going to work
until we actually try it.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So what's being?
That's very interesting, is it?
I wonder, kind of what'shindering that or what would be
the leap forward to be able toget more of the AI and the
algorithms into using somethinglike quantum computing?
Is it just the understanding ofthe quantum computing type, of
different computing powers withthe algorithm, or is it just we
(14:32):
just don't have enough quantumcomputing to test all the
algorithms with AI?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, so I think the biggest challenge that our
quantum computers are not goodenough yet and so all computers
suffer from errors.
So in a classical computer thatwould be one of your bits, like
a zero accidentally becoming aone right, maybe there's some
voltage issue or something, orlike a cosmic ray can actually
come and hit your storage deviceand can flip a bit from a zero
to a one or one to a zero.
(14:59):
And so there's all sorts ofways that traditional computers
will correct for these errors.
Or for example I don't know howold your listeners are, but
remember CDs, whatever you usefor music or for data.
One of the issues is that it'slike if your CD gets scratched
right, then it might mess upyour music.
But actually in a lot of casesif you get a scratch on your CD
(15:21):
it's actually still okay, likeit still plays all right, and
that's because there's differentencodings that are used for the
music.
So that way if, even if some ofyour bits get flipped or
damaged, it can still infer fromthe other bits what that error
was and how to fix it.
And so with quantum computers,they also suffer from errors,
and the challenge is that theyare a lot more sensitive, and so
(15:45):
if you go back to this sphereor this ball analogy, for a
classical error you have to gofrom the North Pole, your zero,
all the way to the South Pole,201, or vice versa, in order to
constitute an error.
But since a quantum bit can beanywhere on the sphere, if you
just move a little bit on thatsphere, that's an error, and so
(16:06):
it's much more vulnerable now,because any kind of movement on
that sphere constitutes adifferent qubit versus a giant
leap from the North Pole and theSouth Pole, and so quantum
computers are a lot morevulnerable to errors, and
unfortunately, there are methodsto try to encode this
information in such a way thatif you have an error you can
(16:29):
find it and fix it.
But your hardware needs to begood enough in order to
implement those strategies, andthe hardware is not good enough
yet.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Interesting.
I mean it's interesting.
I mean it seems like they're alittle bit more fragile, more
delicate than classicalcomputers.
Right, it seems like thetechnology is so advanced, but
you mentioned this they're notgood enough, which is
interesting because you wouldthink that you would have all of
the best hardware to be able tomake the quantum computer work
(16:59):
right, as I mean I know thatNVIDIA, google, amazon, they've
all kind of got some elements ofquantum computing.
Are there different elements ofquantum computing across
different providers like Amazon,Google, or are they all pretty
much all playing from the samefield of same hardware, same
type of operating system?
Is it different or is it thesame?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It is different, and this is one of the interesting
things about quantum computing,which is that it's not
necessarily the same type ofhardware that we're using for
traditional computers, althoughit could be.
Essentially, to build a quantumcomputer, to have a quantum bit
, you need to take any physicalsystem that inherently behaves
according to the laws of quantummechanics.
(17:41):
So just to maybe throw out someexamples that people might have
heard of before.
So, for example, with light,people might have heard of a
photon.
So a photon is commonly calledlike a particle of light, and so
light has a property which iscalled a polarization.
So you may have sunglasses thatare polarized, that will help
cut out glare and things likethat.
(18:01):
And so an individual photon,this single particle of light,
also has polarization, butbecause it's a single particle,
it behaves according to the lawsof quantum mechanics, and so
instead of having a polarizationthat is solely vertical or
solely horizontal, it can be ina superposition or a combination
of vertical and horizontal, andwhen you measure it, you force
(18:24):
it into being vertical orhorizontal, and so you can think
of these two polarizations,vertical and horizontal, as
being your zero and your one,and so there are some scientists
and companies that are pursuingquantum computing, using
photons, for example.
There are others that are usingsuperconducting circuits, where
you have current in this, inthis circuit, and if you get it
(18:49):
very, very cold, like at amillikelvin, so you know just
fractions of a degree aboveabsolute zero, it turns out that
this starts to act in a quantummechanical way and you can
actually use that as yourquantum bit.
There are people that are usingindividual atoms as their
quantum bit and different likeenergy levels of the atom.
You're looking, people arelooking at trapped ions, so
(19:13):
those are charged atoms.
There are approaches using thespin of an electron, so this is
like the Ingram momentum of anelectron, which again is
something that behaves accordingto the laws of quantum
mechanics.
And so there are so manydifferent approaches and more
than I've mentioned here,because not one of these
(19:36):
approaches has won yet hasdemonstrated that that is the
approach to go and this kind ofmimics the evolution of our
traditional computers.
Right, like before transistors,there are all sorts of different
approaches and people had todiscover, like, what are better
ways to build computers?
You can start with vacuum tubesand relays and things like that
and eventually, once thetransistor was developed and
(19:59):
then further matured over thecourse of decades.
Now we have our transistorbased CPUs, right that that are
amazing or small.
You know fast and everything.
And so you know in some sensewe haven't reached a point of
having like the quantum versionof a of a transistor.
And even when we do, you knowit may still take decades to
mature it to the point that youknow we have our amazing
(20:21):
computing devices in our pockets, in our cell phones.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It's interesting.
What do you, what are youseeing from the student
perspective of students thatyou're teaching at the
university?
What are some of the thingsthat they need to understand
getting into a program wherethey're understanding quantum
computing?
And what are some of the thingsthat they need to understand
getting into a program wherethey're understanding quantum
computing, and what are some ofthe things that they're learning
as they're going through thejourney of understanding it?
From the university perspective, I'd be interested to know kind
(20:45):
of what happens kind of in theclassroom.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, I would say that students can have a place
in quantum computing from a verywide range of backgrounds, just
like with traditional computing.
Computing from a very widerange of backgrounds, just like
with traditional computing.
Like, there's no one who reallyis a master of every single
part of a computer.
Right, you have software people, you have hardware people.
Even within those twodesignations, there's so much
level of expertise right when,and then even beyond that like
(21:12):
technical side, there's thepeople who work in the business
side, right, in the marketingand sales.
You know everything.
Right, there's this wholeecosystem.
Then there's all the additionaltechnologies that support, uh,
computers, um, and so you know,I want to just, you know,
emphasize that with quantumcomputing it's going to be
similar.
Right, there's people who aregoing to work on the software
(21:34):
side.
There's going to people whowork up in the hardware side.
Even on the software side, youhave people who are maybe
working more on the math and thetheory of things.
You have people who are goingto work on the software side.
There's going to be people whowork on the hardware side.
Even on the software side, youhave people who are maybe
working more on the math and thetheory of things.
You have people who are workingmore on coding and programming
challenges on the hardware side.
Another thing with quantumcomputers is that quantum
computers don't exist in avacuum.
It's not like you just have aquantum computer To build a
(22:06):
quantum computer.
You also use classicalcomputers to be adjusting all of
the knobs and voltages andlasers and things like that that
are going into controllingthese quantum mechanical systems
.
And so, just like traditionalcomputing is very diverse in the
backgrounds that people have,whether it's engineering or
physics or math, computerscience, chemistry, business all
these various fields Quantumcomputing is going to be similar
and so, yeah.
So in the field I see studentsthat come from a traditional
(22:27):
physics background who are doingthe research, but there's also
a lot of people who come from,say, math or engineering or
computer science or people whoare on the business side, who
are interested in how emergingtechnologies might affect
business.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Interesting.
So it seems like it's kind oflike you know, like you
mentioned, in today's world isthat you have a lot of people
from different disciplines,different spaces of expertise
all kind of coming together tobe able to kind of work on maybe
a common problem, where theyall work together as a team to
solve problems.
And I see this a lot across thedifferent industries, with
encompassing artificialintelligence.
You have a lot of people fromdifferent backgrounds and
(22:59):
different technical andnon-technical disciplines doing
some very interesting things.
What are you and kind ofshifting a little bit what are
you seeing kind of from thefuture perspective of what would
you like to see happen in thequantum computing space?
From the technologistperspective and some of the
folks in my space aretechnologists what are you
looking for from thetechnologist in terms of
(23:21):
innovation or something thatmight be new, that you would see
advance quantum computing?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I would say that approaching quantum computing
from the perspective that thereis still a lot of basic science
and research to be done, I thinkyou know, sometimes people like
to hype up emergingtechnologies which is true of
any emerging technology, notjust quantum, but certainly
quantum is guilty as well, wherepeople might say things like
(23:49):
you know, quantum is going tocure cancer next year.
You know it's going to solveclimate change next year, right?
These are some of the claimsthat that sometimes come out,
and you know I would say thatyou know, between the like, the
like, the two applications, theones that we know quantum
computers can do, and thosewhere people are kind of like,
speculating or maybe have aguess, I would say those are
(24:10):
very much more on the the guessor the speculating side, right,
sometimes people can be veryoptimistic, and so, like I
mentioned earlier, even once thetransistor was invented, it
still took many decades to reachthe point where we had CPUs
that are built using transistors, and so you know there's still
a lot of work to be done.
I think there's a famous quote Ican't remember verbatim, but to
(24:32):
paraphrase, it's basicallysomething along the lines that
we tend to overestimate thenear-term consequences of new
technologies but underestimatetheir ramifications long-term.
And so you know, I think,long-term, yes, quantum
computers will have a hugeimpact on our society, just like
traditional computers basicallytouch every aspect of life now.
(24:53):
But you know, and I think youknow, it's very hard for us to
just to understand just how bigthat impact could potentially be
, just like the early creatorsof computers, you know, didn't
understand that we would havethis conversation now, you know,
over the internet, using ourcomputers.
But you know, in the near term,I think, we tend to
(25:15):
overestimate how much work stillneeds to be done.
And so, yeah, so in terms ofyou know, what can technologists
bring, I think, just having anunderstanding that there is
still a lot of basic work to bedone.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
but there is also a place for people to start
thinking about you know what isyour perspective on kind of what
you're seeing in the landscapein the next three to five years,
your predictions.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So I think there's going to be a lot of continued
growth from various sectors inquantum computing.
Certainly, in the past handfulof years, the rise of like
industry involvement in quantumcomputing has been huge right
computing has been huge right.
Historically, quantum computinghas been mostly in the academic
setting that people have beenthinking about and doing the
basic research on what mightquantum computers do and how one
(26:07):
might begin to build them.
But now that we're gettingcloser to quantum computers
being useful, the investmentfrom companies, both in the
hardware and the software, hasgrown a lot, and so I'm
expecting to see a lot more workon that.
But, like I mentioned earlier,like we still don't know which
approach is the best, and so Ithink there's still going to be
a lot of you know, announcementsfrom these different camps and
(26:30):
different approaches saying likeyou know, we've reached this
new breakthrough, we've reachedthat new breakthrough, but you
know I breakthrough, but we'renot going to know really which
one is going to win out, and Ithink there's still going to be
quite a bit of work and it mightbe that there's going to be
some completely new approachthat people haven't tried yet
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
It's going to be interesting to see what happens
in the next three to five years.
I think that there's a lot ofhype going on, especially with
artificial intelligence.
We're kind of in that hypecycle right now A lot of
excitement's a lot of hype goingon, especially with artificial
intelligence.
That you know we're kind of inthat hype cycle right now A lot
of excitement, a lot ofenthusiasm and, to your point,
kind of around quantum is thatthere's also a lot of excitement
.
Probably a lot of you know overover excitement where there's
there's not a lot of.
There's not a lot there therejust yet, but it how the
(27:12):
landscape plays out.
Tom, I really can't thank youagain for coming on the show.
Your insights has been veryinvaluable to our listeners and
thank you for enlightening us onthis topic and we really gained
a lot of insight from yourexperience on this topic.
Any final thoughts on where wecan follow you?
Keep up to date with yourlatest journeys and papers and
(27:33):
things that you publish.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, if you want to see more about my work, you can
go to my website atthomaswongnet.
So it's just my name,thomaswongnet.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And you also have an X account, right, I do.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yes, and you can find my handle on my website.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Wonderful.
Thanks again, tom, for yourwonderful thoughts on this topic
and thank you to all of ourlisteners.
Thank you for tuning in and, asalways, fellow travelers, stay
curious, stay informed.
Most of all, happy travels,thanks.
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