If we already had powerful quantum computers in real-world use today, dealing with the current pandemic in all its facets would be much easier.
facets would be much easier to manage. The high performance of quantum computing could quickly shed light on the development of new active ingredients and pharmaceutical products in particular, but also on the course of a pandemic. What laboratories need months or years to do could be simulated and calculated in a very short space of time and the best options offered.

We are not there yet. But the progress in quantum computing is enormous. In the early 1980s, the American physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman spoke of quantum computers as effective tools for solving the challenges of physics and chemistry. In his opinion, the cost of solving quantum-based problems using conventional computer architectures would increase exponentially and would therefore be neither economical nor realistic to implement. Feynman would probably also have been surprised by the Covid-19 pandemic as a real and not fictitious problem.

"Quantum computing can speed up simulations and calculations enormously"

In fact, the Moore's Law principle invented by Intel founder Gordon Moore, according to which the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every 24 months, has recently begun to falter. Specially configured high-performance chips such as FPGAs and GPUs, as well as new manufacturing methods in lithography, have led to continuous progress in hardware performance; software algorithms are now also making great strides and, in combination with sophisticated hardware, are driving the performance of the overall IT package. However, genuine quantum leaps in conventional hardware development can no longer be taken for granted and are achieved at great expense.

Quantum Supremacy - Quantum superiority

Last fall, the time had come: Google announced for the first time that it had been able to demonstrate quantum supremacy in a special computing experiment that would have taken a conventional computer 10,000 years to complete: The computing experiment on Google's special processor Sycamore, equipped with 53 qubits (quantum bits), was able to perform the complex calculation in 200 s. The news went around the world and was a top headline for many media and newspapers, expressing its importance. Special laboratory environments are still required to keep the unruly qubits happy. Above all, a lot of cooling energy is needed to create the special conditions: In terms of size and stature, the quantum computers are reminiscent of the early mainframe computers of Konrad Zuse's time.

Quantum error correction - the path to Moore's Law for quantum computing

The 'Solactive Quantum Computing Index' is the world's first financial index on quantum computing. The subscription period for investors runs from 08.06. - 26.06.2020. The first listing will take place on 29.06.2020. It includes a total of 20 leading companies from the hardware, software and key application segments with the greatest potential. The basis is a Quantum Computing Scoring Index, which is determined on the basis of the number of patents, start-up investments and key financial figures.

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A key assumption - underlying the theory of quantum error correction - is that quantum state errors can be considered digitized and localized. To be successfully described by a digitized error model, a system should have few correlated errors. The Google scientists emphasize in their Quantum Supremacy paper that they choose circuits that randomize and decorrelate errors by optimizing control to minimize systematic errors and leakage, and by designing gates that are much more efficient.

Which makes you sit up and take notice: The researchers predict that quantum computing power will continue to grow at a double exponential rate. This means that hardware advances will in all likelihood follow a quantum processor equivalent of Moore's Law, doubling the computing volume every few years. However, in order to rev up the quantum engine and bring full computing power to the starting line, great efforts still need to be made in the technology of quantum error correction.

Huge potential for value creation

Strategy consultants McKinsey estimate that the market for quantum computing and the associated technologies will be worth one trillion dollarsby 2035. However, according to the consultants, the basic prerequisite for this is the productive use of quantum computers. In addition to taming the hardware, new platforms, kernels and programming languages are required on the software side. In the meantime, leading Internet companies such as Google with Tensor Flow for quantum computing, IBM with its Qiskit software platform and Microsoft with its Q# programming language specially developed for quantum computers have developed important software frameworks. IBM even offers free access for developers to its Qiskit systems. The Chinese search engine company Baidu is not lagging behind and has recently started offering software developers another alternative with its machine learning environment 'Paddle Quantum'.
Does this mean that, after artificial intelligence, the USA and China are once again driving the stakes in the next important technology, quantum computing, and once again showing the Europeans the tail lights?

Thomas Rappold is a financial/stock market expert, author (Silicon Valley Investing) and founder of numerous Internet start-ups.

© Thomas Rappold

The fact that the European Union's "Quantum Technologies Flagship Initiative" will provide around 1 billion euros over the next ten years for the quantum fields of communication, simulation, computing, meteorology and sensor technology gives hope. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, under the leadership of Prof. Reimund Neugebauer, is playing a key role in this for Germany.

IBM is providing its own quantum computer at its headquarters in Ehningen, Swabia, for application-driven research projects. "The combination of quantum and artificial intelligence will be nothing less than a future key technology that will secure our competitiveness in the international high-tech markets," says Neugebauer. Prof. Manfred Hauswirth, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, is of the opinion that we are in a very good starting position in Europe and especially in Germany. The reason for this is the "deep understanding of applications" and the knowledge of "large production and industry processes" including the "expertise in the field of quantum physical processes". Quantum computing can accelerate simulations and calculations enormously. The sectors that promise the most potential are finance (portfolio optimization), materials and energy research, mobility and transport (innovative traffic simulations) as well as pharmaceutical and medical research (new drugs, active ingredients, pandemic predictions).

Race of nations for supremacy

Donald Trump, with his 'America First' policy, sees space travel and quantum computing as the two cutting-edge technologies in the battle with China for global supremacy. Europe, and Germany in particular, would do well to invest heavily in quantum computing applications. In the medium term, quantum computing could prove to be a decisive key to solving the manifold challenges facing German industry in the fields of digitalization and new (electric) mobility.