Two Quantum Computing Predictions Which Came True
Grading My 2019 GovTech Prediction
Excerpts and salient points ~
+ Prediction 3: Quantum Computing Changes the Game
+ Leave it up to those little quantum bits that defy the traditional laws of physics to prevent me from getting totally shut out this year. Quantum computing has been studied for quite a few years now. There are many government and private partnerships in the United States trying to engineer a powerful quantum machine, and quite a few corporations trying to develop new technology on their own. There is even a bit of a quantum arms race going on between nations. Even so, quantum computing is a new and difficult science. Advances have been slow.
There are so many amazing things that our nation could achieve as a leader in quantum computing. But we had to reach the supremacy milestone first. And this year, we did. So my prediction about quantum computing changing the game was most certainly true
+ Good news for this country’s efforts came early with the passage of the National Quantum Initiative Act, which added $1.2 billion into the quantum research budgets for the Energy Department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NASA and the National Science Foundation. But that was just the start.
+ In October, Google, which has been working on one of those aforementioned government partnerships with NASA, announced that it had achieved quantum supremacy, a term meaning that they built a quantum machine that could solve problems faster than any traditional computer ever could. Google claims that even a supercomputer would take 10,000 years to solve the same thing its quantum machine did in just 2.5 days. Although some other firms working on quantum computers, especially IBM, disputes Google’s claim, it’s clear that their quantum machine is quite impressive, and more innovations will follow.
Source: Nextgov. John Breeden II, Grading My 2019 GovTech Prediction…
Content may have been edited for style and clarity.