it has 80 years all computers have
worked basically the same way a series
of electrical circuits switching between
off and on zero and one but that could
be about to change quantum computing
would enable exponential jumps and
computing power turning the entire
industry on its head and according to
Microsoft's Research Lab it could happen
in the next 10 years where a
conventional computer uses electrical
circuits as bits a quantum computer runs
on quantum bits or qubits tiny particles
magnetically suspended an extreme cold
just fractions of a degree above
absolute zero
the idea is to keep each qubit in a
state of superposition
so it's simultaneously a 1 and a 0 that
allows for something researchers call a
quantum speed-up with the speed-up each
qubit increases computing power
exponentially with enough qubits that
power starts to grow really fast it
won't help much if you just want to
check your email but it lets researchers
tackle complex problems like weather
prediction or materials analysis that
are still really difficult with
conventional computing Google and
Microsoft are particularly interested
they both formed quantum labs hiring
away a lot of the top scientists working
on quantum computing but that speed-up
isn't happening yet or at least we
haven't seen proof of it company called
d-wave is already making and selling
quantum computers to different labs
including Google's quantum AI lab but a
lot of researchers say the computers
can't actually demonstrate a quantum
speed-up that means it is a quantum
computer but it's not good at any of the
things we want quantum computers to be
good of course d-wave disagrees but it's
really hard to say who's right it's one
of the weirdest things about quantum
computing it might already be here and
we just don't know it yet
you