A look inside IBM's new Quantum Computer

ABC's Mike Dobuski does his best to explain what this is, and how away we are from this

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Over to the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line
will change lanes and talk to ABC's Mike Debusky. It
is tech tooge Day, And you know, I was kind
of hoping for something easy to digest here, Mike, it's not.
It's not like how many cameras are on my new iPhone.
You went into an IBM facility in New York's Hudson

(00:21):
Valley where they do quantum computing, and we're really starting
to see some progress made there. What is on a
base level quantum computing.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, nothing like a little quantum physics to start seven
in the morning here. But to answer that question, we
first have to talk about how traditional computing works, how
normal computers like your phone or your laptop work. Basically,
it all comes down to ones and zeros. Right, we've
all seen the matrix where the green numbers come cascading
down off the top of the screen. They're all ones
and zeros. Right, that's binary code. Well, that's actually a

(00:53):
real computing thing. That is a bit, essentially the one
or the zero. And if you arrange enough of those
of those bits next to each other in certain configurations,
well that is what dictates what you look at on
your screens right every photo that you look at on
your phone, every drop down menu that you click on
a website, every video game that you play, is at

(01:15):
its very core composed of bits, these ones or these
zeros and huge numbers and in different configurations. That ultimately
is what dictates what you look at on your computer.
Quantum computers use something completely different, and that's one of
the first important things to know about these things is
that they're not traditional replacements for computers. It's not like

(01:36):
this is going to be the next evolution of what's
going to be in our phone. Necessarily, it's kind of
its own separate thing that's being developed alongside classical computers,
as IBM calls them. Quantum computers use q bits or
quantum bits as they're known, where instead of being a
one or a zero, it's some probability between them right
up until the moment that you run a program er

(01:58):
do a calculation on a quantum computer, or the bit
could be one or zero. It's actually kind of both
until you do it, at which point it becomes one
or the other, and it's really Eddie. It's kind of
requires a little bit of a quantum physics degree, a
little bit more of a quantum physics degree than I
have to fully explain. But the basic effect here, guys,
is that these computers are able to solve really complex

(02:20):
problems way faster than traditional computers can, and that opens
up a lot of potential in the next few years.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, so qbits bits. You know, I'm reading about superpositions
and all of this. So what are practical applications for
quantum computing?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
It's a great question. So up until very recently, this
used to be pretty theoretical. So for example, last year
Google made some news in the quantum computing world. They're
also working on their own quantum chip. They call it Willow,
and they say that that was able to do a
calculation that would have taken a classical computer ten septillion
years to do. So that kind of gives you an

(02:58):
idea of the speed that these can computers can do
these really specific, really niche math problems at and I
was talking to IBM yesterday and they say they're largely
in the not just finding answers phase, but they're coming
up with questions phase. Right. They need to figure out
what these math problems are, these applications are, so they
can properly sell these computers. Two big time vendors, financial companies,

(03:21):
medical units, that type of thing. They're trying to come
up with the questions, not just the answers. It's kind
of an interesting idea. But I know what you guys
are thinking, what does this have to do with me?
Why do I care about a quantum computer? Well, last
month HSBC the bank announced that they used IBM's quantum computer,
the same type that I was looking at yesterday in
the Hudson Valley to help predict excuse me, the bond

(03:44):
trading market more accurately, about thirty four percent more accurately
as it stands right now. This was basically a test.
It took place in the European market. But if IBM
is to be believed, that is eventually going to be
your money that's being traded with thesequantum computers. And then
you consider the application for things like drug development or

(04:05):
artificial intelligence and all of that being accelerated, essentially, all
of that development happening a lot more quickly again ten
septillion years down to basically zero. Think about applying that
to something like developing a new drug or developing a
new technology that's kind of the potential of these quantum

(04:25):
computers if the promised future comes to be.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
It just seems scary powerful. And you know, as people
are kind of becoming more and more familiar and I
will stop short of seeing comfortable, but at least more
familiar with AI, how would these two overlay, so what
AI use quantum computing to be even more AI ish.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, So I asked this question to Jerry Chow, who's
the head of IBM's quantum division, essentially their quantum projects,
and he said that AI is being used in two ways.
It's basically going in and coming out. So we already
know that generative artificial intelligence products are pretty proficient at coding, right,
Like they can do basic computer code pretty well and

(05:06):
have actually been doing a lot of like entry level
computing where coding work in that sector. So they're using
that application to help make these computers to help come
up with some of these questions, also using it kind
of just strategically to help, you know, come up with
these very specific math problems that we've been talking about.
But they say down the line, these quantum computers can

(05:27):
help in the development of artificial intelligence as well. They
can actually help to produce faster models, more sophisticated models,
models that don't hallucinate as much. Again, that's to come
that hasn't happened yet. So much of this is proving
the worth of quantum computers to these various sectors, and
there is pushback. Right there are people who use traditional

(05:48):
computers in the coding space, in the high tech space
who are like, quantum is kind of just a flash
in the pan. It's not something that we should pay
attention to. We need to develop these traditional computers. More so,
it's an interesting tension that's playing out right now in
the upper echaloons of tech development, of computer development, where
some people kind of like the old way and some
people are saying we should try this new way. And

(06:10):
that all has big implications for where a technology like
generative AI goes in the future.