The UK has begun sharing quantum research with other members of the G7 and Australia, as the race to develop the new technology heats up.
“Quantum computing is going to change the way computers work for all sorts of things,” said Lord Patrick Vallance, the minister for science, research, and innovation.
He was speaking to Sky News exclusively at the launch of NMI-Q, a new global partnership to share quantum developments.
“It’s really important for national security, it’s important for things like designing new materials or making new medicines,” the government’s former chief scientific adviser said.
“It’s just going to change, in orders of magnitude, the way in which computers can help in those places because of its speed and capacity to deal with really big problems.”
Hold up… what’s a quantum computer?
Whereas traditional computers work with “bits”, which can either be a one or a 0, quantum computers deal in “qubits”, which can be a one, a 0 or both.
That means quantum computers can test out multiple possibilities at once, whereas a normal computer would have to try them out one at a time.
Consequently, quantum computers are very powerful – a calculation that might take hundreds of years normally could potentially be done in seconds or hours by a quantum machine.
Although quantum computers haven’t fully made it out of the laboratories yet, Professor Sebastian Weidt, chief executive of Universal Quantum, estimates they’ll soon have an impact.
‘It’s a huge threat’
“I would most certainly expect within the next five years or so to really see that important inflexion point where people start to experience some real value coming out of quantum computing,” he told Sky News.
For him, that means nations and businesses need to start preparing for the threat it could bring.
Whoever manages to create viable quantum computers first will have vast amounts of computing power and could potentially use it to smash through traditional cybersecurity systems and infrastructure.
“[It’s] a huge threat,” said Prof Weidt.
“I would always operate under the assumption that quantum computers will be here in the not-too-distant future, which means you really have to think about protecting your cyber infrastructure. There are ways to protect yourself against the quantum compute threat, and it’s really important to start doing that now.”
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That’s why partnerships between friendly nations are being formed.
Countries like Russia and China are also developing quantum technology and even from a financial point of view, being left behind in the race for quantum could be disastrous.
“No nation can develop quantum technologies in isolation,” said Dr Peter Thompson CBE, the chief executive of the National Physical Laboratory, which is helping to lead on the international partnership.
“Laboratories like ourselves can work collaboratively so that at that very early stage, we can develop the test and evaluation methods so that companies across the globe can test their capabilities.
“That’s particularly important for the UK, because UK companies can then test their quantum technologies, and that should open up markets for them across the world.”
The UK has been researching quantum for decades and is in a good position, according to Lord Vallance, but it needs to capitalise on that work.
As he said in his speech launching the partnership, the UK has put in the “hard yards”. Now it aims to work with others to ensure quantum is developed “reliably”, “interoperably” and “safely”.
