In a recent article published by Ivan Deutsch titled: Harnessing the Power of the Second Quantum Revolution, Ivan outlines the quantum landscape. Published in the 2nd edition of PRX Quantum, dedicated to Quantum Computing and technology, the work outlines and reviews the state of the current Quantum industry.
If you are not in academia you might not be so used to the wonders of review articles. These are often very valuable works that can help non domain experts get to grips with a topic. We were particularly impressed with the review by Ivan Deutsch as he manages to provide a good intro to near term computing with NISQ devices with enough detail to be useful but without getting lost too much in the minutiae – indeed what a good review paper should be.
The potential promise of Quantum computing represents one amongst many of the promises of the second
Quantum Revolution
With such sections as: “NISQ computing: Dream or Nightmare”, “Quantum computing: digital versus analog”, “Quantum advantage in the NISQ era”, Ivan walks through some of the area of classical computing, analogue computing and then onto some of the issues of modern day or current Quantum systems which suffer from noise issues. These NISQ devices as John Preskill has named them are proving themselves despite being noisy – they are in fact amenable to be rather useful.
It was a huge surprise to 20th-century physicists that a system can be engineered to protect the wavefunction from “collapsing” in the presence of a noisy environment and that quantum interference could be extended into the macroscopic world
An understanding of how we can harness quantum complexity for technology will guide our ability to understand the natural world and vice versa. If Nature has some tricks up its sleeve, we should borrow them.
Harnessing the second quantum revolution will require us to move out of our comfort zone, learn new things, and synthesize the perspectives of others. The second quantum revolution is accelerating—and with eyes wide open to the opportunities and real challenges, the revolution will deliver.
You can read more about the developments of Quantum in the journal: https://journals.aps.org/prxquantum/pdf/10.1103/PRXQuantum.1.020101, which is open access – which means anyone can read it!