Quantum computing is poised to transform our lives. Meet the man leading Google's charge

 R&D #Quantumcomputing is poised to transform our lives. Meet the man leading #Google 's charge John Martinis outlines how he's building his qubit computer and what it will do John Martinis, University of Santa Barbara physics professor and head of Google's quantum computing lab, is less concerned with the well-being of Schrödinger's infamous cat than with how he can train it to solve complex maths problems. Last year, Martinis achieved the first step towards building a quantum computer with a working group of nine quantum bits (qubits) able to perform error-checking1. Now he's begun scaling this up, with the aim of demonstrating a 100-qubit group within the next couple of years. WIRED talked to him to him about the challenges involved. WIRED: Just how powerful does the kind of quantum computer you're building have the potential to be? John Martinis: Classical computation is based on the storage and manipulation of simple bits of information, which can be either a 0 or a 1. With quantum computing, we use the laws of quantum mechanics to build bits that are both 0 and 1 at the same time. This allows us to create a parallel processing machine where, instead of an algorithm running the case 0 and then running the case 1 and so on to get an answer, we can run 0 and 1 simultaneously. With a single bit that parallelisation speeds things up by a factor of two to the power of one - you've doubled the speed - but this power increases for every additional quantum bit you add, so the speed increase is exponential. So once you get to 300 qubits, you've sped things up by a factor of two to the power of 300, which is greater than the number of atoms in the entire universe. You can't achieve that with a classical computer. How do you build qubits and why did you choose that method?

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/googles-head-of-quantum-computing