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What is quantum computation?

Sando Popescu

Published Dec 14, 2000• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Only fifty years had passed from the first electronic computer, a monster weighting a couple of tonnes and capable of performing a few operations per second to a computer capable of competing with the best human being at chess. As you might recall, on this particular occasion Kasparov won, but only a year later Deep Blue defeated the world champion.

DOI
10.1093/oso/9780198505143.003.0018

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Abstract Only fifty years had passed from the first electronic computer, a monster weighting a couple of tonnes and capable of performing a few operations per second to a computer capable of competing with the best human being at chess. As you might recall, on this particular occasion Kasparov won, but only a year later Deep Blue defeated the world champion.
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ANYONE OF A CERTAIN AGE who has even a passing interest in computers will remember the remarkable breakthrough that IBM made in 1997 when its Deep Blue chess-playing computer defeated Garry Kasparov, then the world chess champion. Computer scientists passed another such milestone in March 2016, when DeepMind (a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company) announced that its AlphaGo program had defeated world-champion player Lee Sedol in the game of Go, a board game that had vexed AI researchers for decades. Recently, DeepMind's algorithms have also bested human players in the computer games StarCraft II and Quake Arena III. ¶ Some believe that the cognitive capacities of machines will overtake those of human beings in many spheres within a few decades. Others are more cautious and point out that our inability to understand the source of our own cognitive powers presents a daunting hurdle. How can we make thinking machines if we don't fully understand our own thought processes?
Neutral atom qubits are one of the leading approaches for implementation of a large scale quantum computer. The original proposals for neutral atom qubits were formulated more than 25 years ago, with first demonstrations of a universal gate set following 10 years later. In the last few years the performance and scale of neutral atom qubit arrays has developed at a rapid pace leading to demonstrations of quantum algorithms, and logical qubits for fault tolerant error correction. This contribution reviews the physics of the neutral atom approach, surveys current capabilities, and provides an outlook for future progress.
Game playing is commonly cited in debates concerning human versus machine intelligence, and Chess is often at the center of such debates. However, the role of Chess in delineating the difference between natural and artificial intelligence has been significantly diminished since a World Chess Champion lost in a tournament against a computer. Computer brute force is regularly blamed for the human defeat. This paper proposes a Quantum Chess Board in an attempt to bring back some equilibrium, putting humans and computers on an ostensibly equal footing when faced with the uncertainties of quantum physics.
Abstract We arrive at the centennial of modern quantum mechanics. In about the last third of that century, we have been busy connecting quantum theory with the theory of information and the theory of computing, and with trying to turn quantum phenomena into quantum technologies. We have been talking about the quantum computer for most this trimester (i.e. for the last third-century of the history of quantum physics). Where are we at with this fantastic device? Here I give a few reflections on this question.