Google CEO Sundar Pichai has made a rare, on-record prediction about the next big technological change, which is quantum computing, as the successor to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom. In a recent interview with BBC Newsnight, Pichai stated that the quantum initiative at Google is fast nearing a breaking point, a phase comparable to the one that AI underwent only five years ago. The particular roadmap timeline has the commercially relevant act of quantum technology acceleration squarely within the next several years, at minimum, generating a host of speculation on the part of investors and techno-lovers as to the next deep technology market explosion. He confirmed that Google, which is generally considered a leader in all-purpose quantum computing projects in the world, is already investing heavily in this critical next step of growth.

Shift to quantum computing

Pichai did not describe quantum computing as a mere technological enhancement, but as a complete change in the very structure of computation. He emphasised the immense social gains that the technology will bring, and this is mostly due to the fact that the universe and nature itself work essentially on principles of quantum mechanics.

Through the development of strong quantum systems, Pichai is convinced that the technology will assist humanity in simulating and comprehending nature better to open numerous advantages to society. This is because quantum computing has a high-level method of computation, which uses quantum mechanics to address highly challenging problems exponentially in a fraction of the time taken by the most powerful classical supercomputers to date.

The possible uses of this scientific revolution are enormous and extensive. In Drug Discovery and Materials Science, quantum computers will model molecular interactions with a precision never before observed, and will speed up the design of new pharmaceutical molecules and new materials.

In the case of global infrastructure, quantum technology is the key to the complex optimisation problems of different industries, such as logistics, financial models, and complex supply-chain networks, by considering an almost infinite number of variables at once. The technology is a major challenge to existing encryption policies, including the algorithm given by Shor to factorise large numbers, which in turn motivates the pressing urgency to develop new quantum-safe security protocols to help ensure the safety of digital communication.

Confidence in quantum computing

Tangible technological accomplishments form the foundation of the confidence that Google holds in quantum computing. The remarks of Pichai came right after the company had declared a breakthrough involving its “Willow” quantum computing chip. Google came up with a certain algorithm in this hardware, and it was called Quantum Echoes.

The company boasts that this system attained a verifiable quantum advantage, which is a milestone. In an estimated calculation, the Quantum Echoes algorithm was found to execute at a staggering 13000 times the speed of the best-known classical algorithm on one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, in that particular operation.

The fundamental purpose of Quantum Echoes is to describe the dynamics of atoms in a molecule in terms of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is a future application in critical fields such as materials science or drug discovery. The demonstration confirms that quantum systems are now leaving pure research behind and are now starting to provide demonstrable and better performance on tasks which are merely intractable to classical machines.

Sundar Pichai said, “I would say quantum is where AI was five years ago. So, I think, in five years from now, we’ll be going through a very exciting phase in quantum. We have the state-of-the-art quantum computing efforts in the world…building quantum systems, I think, will help us better simulate and understand nature and unlock many benefits for society.”

Quotation Source: The Economic Times  

Conclusion

The comparison of the present state of quantum computing to the early stages of AI, given by Sundar Pichai five years ago, has put the technology squarely in the limelight as the next wave of deep tech. His announcement made on the backdrop of the current state-of-the-art quantum work at Google and their recent innovation, such as the Quantum Echoes algorithm, has provided a clear roadmap to technology observers and investors. The general opinion of analysts is that, provided Pichai is right, the world will be ready to see quantum capabilities grow exponentially in the future, one that could radically transform encryption, materials science and drug discovery in the next five years.