Quantum theory is vital for the next generation data processing devices. As computers become faster they must become smaller because of the finiteness of the speed of light. The history of computer technology has involved a sequence of changes from one type of physical realisation to another - from gears to relays to valves to transistors to integrated circuits and so on. The step to the molecular scale - the quantum level - will be next. Quantum theory is already important in the design of microelectronic components. Soon it will be necessary to harness quantum theory, rather than simply take it into account, to give data processing devices new functionality.
Quantum theory is vital for the next generation data processing devices. As computers become faster they must become smaller because of the finiteness of the speed of light. The history of computer technology has involved a sequence of changes from one type of physical realisation to another - from gears to relays to valves to transistors to integrated circuits and so on. The step to the molecular scale - the quantum level - will be next. Quantum theory is already important in the design of microelectronic components. Soon it will be necessary to harness quantum theory, rather than simply take it into account, to give data processing devices new functionality.
As computers become faster they must become smaller because of the finiteness of the speed of light. The history of computer technology has involved a sequence of changes from one type of physical realisation to another – from gears to relays to valves to transistors to integrated circuits and so on. The step to the molecular scale – the quantum level – will be next. Quantum theory is already important in the design of microelectronic components. But soon it will be necessary to harness quantum theory, rather than simply take it into account, to give components their functionality.
Computers today become faster by becoming smaller. By reducing the size of transistors, engineers are able to fit more of them on a given size microprocessor, thus increasing the processor's computational power. This process cannot continue forever. It has been estimated that sometime within the next two decades, at the current rate, engineers will be faced with the problem of building something that is smaller than an atom. This is as far as our current "classical" computing paradigm will take us. Quantum computing is a potential solution to this problem. This paradigm of computing seeks to directly exploit quantum mechanical phenomena to perform calculations or in some way boost computational efficiency. Some problems can theoretically be solved on a quantum computer exponentially faster than on a classical computer. An overview of the subject is provided here with emphasis on quantum information processing and physical realizations of a quantum computer. Included is a brief history of the subject, a discussion of quantum computing notions such as parallelism and entanglement and their use in quantum algorithms, and conjecture on the prospects and pitfalls of this theory.
Quantum computing is the area of study focused on developing computer technology based on the principles of quantum theory. The quantum computer, following the laws of quantum physics, would gain enormous processing power through the ability to be in multiple states and to perform tasks using all possible permutations simultaneously. Classical computing relies, at its ultimate level, on principles expressed by Boolean algebra. Data must be processed in an exclusive binary state at any point in time or bits. While the time that each transistor or capacitor needs to be either in 0 or 1 before switching states is now measurable in billionths of a second, there is still a limit as to how quickly these devices can be made to switch state. As the authors progress to smaller and faster circuits, they begin to reach the physical limits of materials and the threshold for classical laws of physics to apply. Beyond this, the quantum world takes over.
Quantum Computation is an interdisciplinary field formed by the merge of quantum effect, information theory and algorithms. The future of computing lies with the quantum computers which may be a hypothetical paradigm but surely will be a reality very soon.This book describes about some quantum algorithms and programs which will prove as the foundation of quantum computers in the years to come.In quantum computers we exploit quantum effects to compute in ways that are faster or moreefficient than, or even impossible, on conventional computers. Quantum computers use aspecific physical implementation to gain a computational advantage over conventionalcomputers. Properties called superposition and entanglement may, in some cases, allow anexponential amount of parallelism. Also, special purpose machines like quantumcryptographic devices use entanglement and other peculiarities like quantum uncertainty.Quantum computing combines quantum mechanics, information theory, and aspects ofcomputer science. The field is a relatively new one that promises secure data transfer,dramatic computing speed increases, and may take component miniaturization to itsfundamental limit.
Q uantum mechanics has had an enormous technological and societal impact.To grasp this point, it is sufficient to cite the invention of the transistor, perhaps the most remarkable among the countless other applications of quantum mechanics.It is also easy to see the enormous impact of computers on everyday life.The importance of computers is such that it is appropriate to say that we are now living in the information age.This information revolution became possible thanks to the invention of the tran sistor, that is, thanks to the synergy between computer science and quantum physics.Today this synergy offers completely new opportunities and promises exciting advances in both funda mental science and technological application.We are referring here to the fact that quantum mechanics can be used to process and transmit information [1,2].Miniaturization provides us with an intuitive way of under standing why, in the near future, quantum laws will become important for computation.The electronics industry for com puters grows hand-in-hand with the decrease in size of integrated circuits.This miniaturization is necessary to increase computa tional power, that is, the number of floating-point operations per second (flops) a computer can perform.In the 1950's, electronic computers based on vacuum-tube technology were capable of performing approximately 103 floating-point operations per second, while nowadays there exist supercomputers whose power is greater than lOteraflops (1013 flops).As we have remarked, this enormous growth of computational power has been made possi ble owing to progress in m in ia tu riz a tio n , w hich m ay be quantified empirically in Moore's law.This law is the result of a remarkable observation made by Gordon Moore in 1965: the number of transistors on a single integrated-circuit chip doubles approximately every 18 24 months.This exponential growth has not yet saturated and Moore's law is still valid.At the present time the limit is approximately 108 transistors per chip and the typical size of circuit components is of the order of 100 nanometres.Extrapolating Moore's law, one would estimate that around the year 2020 we shall reach the atomic size for storing a single bit of inform atio n .At th a t p o in t, q u a n tu m effects will becom e unavoidably dominant.One should be aware that, besides quantum effects, other fac tors could bring Moore's law to an end.In the first place, there are economic considerations.Indeed, the cost of building fabri cation facilities to m an u factu re chips has also increased exponentially with time.Nevertheless, it is important to under stand the ultimate limitations set by quantum mechanics.Even though we might overcome economic barriers by means of tech nological breakthroughs, quantum physics sets fundamental limitations on the size of the circuit components.The first ques tion under debate is whether it would be more convenient to push References
There are signs that we are approaching a technical revolution that might take humankind’s computational capabilities to a new level. Quantum Computing leverages the principles of quantum mechanics, enabling the computational power to solve specific problems currently intractable for classical computers (e.g., cracking cryptographic keys). Since we are getting to a point where we can no longer build smaller, more powerful, more efficient devices with conventional methodologies, we need to think of new ways for technological progress. The manufacturing of microchips is reaching its limits in the use of traditional architectures. Hence, new and more advanced technologies need to address the challenges of increasing energy consumption and data processing. Connectivity, scalable architectures and concepts like Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service have already helped to scale computational-intense applications in the last years and have attracted the interest of IS researchers (e.g., Benlian et al. 2009 ; Benlian et al. 2018 ; Messerschmidt and Hinz 2013 ). Looking ahead to the next generation, computing will comprise technologies that enable high-performance applications far beyond today’s possibilities. One prominent example with a disruptive potential is Quantum Computing. While there are abundant open questions and directions for further developments, researchers in this area have made substantial progress in the last decade, indicating that, after medical imaging, lasers, and superconductors, another quantum-technological innovation might be approaching. We, therefore, intend to provide an overview of the current state of Quantum Computing research and outline how this new technology might stimulate research in Information Systems.