Introduction: Quantum Superposition is at the center of attention of quantum computation, covering both ion trapping and superconducting quantum platforms. Both models are working to have more qubits running at high fidelity and error-free. The challenge is underway. Only 70 qubits running at high fidelity, error-free (or almost error-free) will set the stage for quantum supremacy over our best classical supercomputer exponentially. That's a revolution, a paradigm shift. This post covers the basic information about quantum superposition.
"Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. It states that, much like waves in classical physics, any two (or more) quantum states can be added together ("superposed") and the result will be another valid quantum state; and conversely, that every quantum state can be represented as a sum of two or more other distinct states. Mathematically, it refers to a property of solutions to the Schrödinger equation; since the Schrödinger equation is linear, any linear combination of solutions will also be a solution."
With that said, let's consider the significant advantage of working with qubits.
IN a 2 bit system, we have four possible states 00,10,01,11. Suppose you ask the classical computer to check all of the them for a function, then the classical computer would have to check one at a time, doing each operation separately. This is fine as long when there is a time limit to this. The massive chunk of data like a solution to the global warming would need computation power of nature and immediate results. Note that the process to find solution will increase exponentially as the data grows. In many cases, it will take years, or centuries or lifetime of universe to calculate specific problems.
On the other hand, a two qubit quantum computer due to the phenomenon of superposition is able to analyze all of these possibilities at the same time in one operation. This is incredibly powerful capability, beyond any supercomputers of today and tomorrow. This is due to the fact that two qubits contain information about four states, while two bits only contain information about one state. It means that a quantum computer machine with N qubits can be in superposition of the two to the power of N states at the same time. A four qubit computer could analyze 16 parallel states in a single operation.
In comparison, a four bit classic computer can only analyze one state. To achieve the same solution as the quantum computer, the classic computer would have to repeat this operation 16 times, the advantages of quantum computing will continue to increase with the increase in data. It is thus possible that a 500 qubit computer could one day analyze more data than there are atoms in the observable universe. Even a 70 qubit system, we have the power of 2 to the power 70 and it is an enormous number. With that much power, we can solve some intractable problems for the humanity. So why don't we have more qubits in today's quantum computers? The answer is it is extremely hard to control the qubits. Current accuracy is 98% plus. It is not good enough. That's too much noise and a noisy solution is no solution. We get to all this in this blog, one by one.
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