Microsoft Quantum Computing
22 Dec 2017Quantum Computing - #3 on Holiday Techie Fun Project List
Wow, I’m on a roll. A couple of days ago I shared my Holiday Techie Fun Project List in which I have listed my candidate geeky projects for the holiday season.
Today’s project was to learn about Quantum Computing and to write Hello World with Microsoft’s Quantum Development Kit.
THe Quantun Development Kit is an add-in for Visual Studio. Hello World is the “Teleportation Sample” program. I’m intrigued but not sure I fully grok how this works or the signficance. The fundamental building block of a quantum computer and of the programming is a Qubit. The sample code includes a new language called Q#. The sample transforms the state of a qubit to another qubit through an operation called teleportation.
Quantum computing is a fascinating future wave of technology that has the potential to drastically transform our world. Quantum computers have the ability to solve problems that are practically impossible to model with digital computers that 0/1 based. Quantum computers could help solve some of the most challenging problems of our world in food production, energy, global climate,medicine, and health.
There seems to be a race ongoing between Microsoft, Google, and IBM to find the breakthroughs to make this a reality. Microsoft has been working on this for ten years. Because of it’s potential impact, it makes me think a bit about the Manhattan Project. It’s implications for our world are immense and the stakes are high.
Here are some good videos to check out to learn more.