Quantum computing is the way forward

The use of Chinese computing power to track and monitor the spread of the novel coronavirus has been widely accepted as a key part of the way the nation curbed the spread of the infection.

The use of sophisticated computing power to process the large amounts of data necessary for such vital national operations in 2020 is testament to how important it is for countries including China to invest in computing innovation.

Quantum computing is exciting many researchers in this area, and has the potential to enable devices to do things that are impossible right now.

Companies including Microsoft and Google have released quantum computing kits, to allow developers around the world to experiment with the structure of quantum programming.

And Baidu recently released its toolkit, called Paddle Quantum, to enable developers to build and train so-called quantum neural network models.

The term quantum computing sounds like science fiction, and many far-reaching potential applications conjure images of sheer artificial intelligence, and deep encryptions completely unbreakable by current modern technology.

China is already a world leader in quantum communications. It has created a quantum science satellite and quantum networks connecting Shanghai and Beijing. While this is slightly different technology to quantum computing, the innovation and interest in quantum mechanics generally is soon to trigger the next level of innovation for the country.

Quantum computing allows for what is called a qubit to produce both the "0" and "1" signal at the same time, rather than, as in conventional computing physics, either one or the other.

This can easily be explained with the concept of a spinning coin, in conventional computing the coin could fall and land on either heads or tails, however with quantum computing the coin can stay spinning and be on both sides at the same time. This is called superposition. In practice, this means that all options of a puzzle can be simultaneously explored by a quantum computer, leading to the promise of innovation in areas including artificial intelligence.

The hope of companies including Baidu, when they make quantum toolkits open-source, is to accelerate what has been seen as a bottleneck in research in areas including artificial intelligence and machine learning.

In future, quantum technology may become more widely applied and more accessible.

Already, people can communicate with IBM's quantum computer through the company's website, and even play a card game with it.

However, the reality is that quantum computers, due to their fragile nature of operating on a miniscule quantum scale, by definition, are extremely prone to interference.

Nearly everything is capable of interfering with a qubit in superposition, with even the smallest amount of electrical signal capable of knocking it out of balance. These are issues however, that are minor molehills on the road to a quantum future.

Quantum computers will soon be able to accelerate our research and development in many fields, not in the least through their ability to process large chemical simulations. This is vital for emerging technologies and products, such as self-driving cars and more efficient batteries. Scientists even hope that quantum simulations may, one day, be able to simulate biological processes that take place in the brain, potentially even helping to find a cure for diseases such as Alzheimer's.