What Is Quantum Computing? | NVIDIA Blog
Twenty-seven years before Steve Jobs unveiled a computer you could put in your pocket, physicist Paul Benioff published a paper showing it was theoretically possible to build a much more powerful system you could hide in a thimble a quantum computer.
Named for the subatomic physics it aimed to harness, the concept Benioff described in 1980 still fuels research today, including efforts to build the next big thing in computing: a system that could make a PC look in some ways quaint as an abacus.
Richard Feynman a Nobel Prize winner whose wit-laced lectures brought physics to a broad audience helped establish the field, sketching out how such systems could simulate quirky quantum phenomena more efficiently than traditional computers. So,
Quantum computing is a sophisticated approach to making parallel calculations, using the physics that governs subatomic particles to replace the more simplistic transistors in todays computers.
Quantum computers calculate using qubits, computing units that can be on, off or any value between, instead of the bits in traditional computers that are either on or off, one or zero. The qubits ability to live in the in-between state called superposition adds a powerful capability to the computing equation, making quantum computers superior for some kinds of math.
Using qubits, quantum computers could buzz through calculations that would take classical computers a loooong time if they could even finish them.
For example, todays computers use eight bits to represent any number between 0 and 255. Thanks to features like superposition, a quantum computer can use eight qubits to represent every number between 0 and 255, simultaneously.
Its a feature like parallelism in computing: All possibilities are computed at once rather than sequentially, providing tremendous speedups.
So, while a classical computer steps through long division calculations one at a time to factor a humongous number, a quantum computer can get the answer in a single step. Boom!
That means quantum computers could reshape whole fields, like cryptography, that are based on factoring what are today impossibly large numbers.
That could be just the start. Some experts believe quantum computers will bust through limits that now hinder simulations in chemistry, materials science and anything involving worlds built on the nano-sized bricks of quantum mechanics.
Quantum computers could even extend the life of semiconductors by helping engineers create more refined simulations of the quantum effects theyre starting to find in todays smallest transistors.
Indeed, experts say quantum computers ultimately wont replace classical computers, theyll complement them. And some predict quantum computers will be used as accelerators much as GPUs accelerate todays computers.
Dont expect to build your own quantum computer like a DIY PC with parts scavenged from discount bins at the local electronics shop.
The handful of systems operating today typically require refrigeration that creates working environments just north of absolute zero. They need that computing arctic to handle the fragile quantum states that power these systems.
In a sign of how hard constructing a quantum computer can be, one prototype suspends an atom between two lasers to create a qubit. Try that in your home workshop!
Quantum computing takes nano-Herculean muscles to create something called entanglement. Thats when two or more qubits exist in a single quantum state, a condition sometimes measured by electromagnetic waves just a millimeter wide.
Crank up that wave with a hair too much energy and you lose entanglement or superposition, or both. The result is a noisy state called decoherence, the equivalent in quantum computing of the blue screen of death.
A handful of companies such as Alibaba, Google, Honeywell, IBM, IonQ and Xanadu operate early versions of quantum computers today.
Today they provide tens of qubits. But qubits can be noisy, making them sometimes unreliable. To tackle real-world problems reliably, systems need tens or hundreds of thousands of qubits.
Experts believe it could be a couple decades before we get to a high-fidelity era when quantum computers are truly useful.
Predictions of when we reach so-called quantum computing supremacy the time when quantum computers execute tasks classical ones cant is a matter of lively debate in the industry.
The good news is the world of AI and machine learning put a spotlight on accelerators like GPUs, which can perform many of the types of operations quantum computers would calculate with qubits.
So, classical computers are already finding ways to host quantum simulations with GPUs today. For example, NVIDIA ran a leading-edge quantum simulation on Selene, our in-house AI supercomputer.
NVIDIA announced in the GTC keynote the cuQuantum SDK to speed quantum circuit simulations running on GPUs. Early work suggests cuQuantum will be able to deliver orders of magnitude speedups.
The SDK takes an agnostic approach, providing a choice of tools users can pick to best fit their approach. For example, the state vector method provides high-fidelity results, but its memory requirements grow exponentially with the number of qubits.
That creates a practical limit of roughly 50 qubits on todays largest classical supercomputers. Nevertheless weve seen great results (below) using cuQuantum to accelerate quantum circuit simulations that use this method.
Researchers from the Jlich Supercomputing Centre will provide a deep dive on their work with the state vector method in session E31941 at GTC (free with registration).
A newer approach, tensor network simulations, use less memory and more computation to perform similar work.
Using this method, NVIDIA and Caltech accelerated a state-of-the-art quantum circuit simulator with cuQuantum running on NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs. It generated a sample from a full-circuit simulation of the Google Sycamore circuit in 9.3 minutes on Selene, a task that 18 months ago experts thought would take days using millions of CPU cores.
Using the Cotengra/Quimb packages, NVIDIAs newly announced cuQuantum SDK, and the Selene supercomputer, weve generated a sample of the Sycamore quantum circuit at depth m=20 in record time less than 10 minutes, said Johnnie Gray, a research scientist at Caltech.
This sets the benchmark for quantum circuit simulation performance and will help advance the field of quantum computing by improving our ability to verify the behavior of quantum circuits, said Garnet Chan, a chemistry professor at Caltech whose lab hosted the work.
NVIDIA expects the performance gains and ease of use of cuQuantum will make it a foundational element in every quantum computing framework and simulator at the cutting edge of this research.
Sign up to show early interest in cuQuantum.
Learn more about quantum computing on the NVIDIA Technical Blog.
Visit link:
What Is Quantum Computing? | NVIDIA Blog
- Think Quantum Computing Will Be the Next Big Thing? These Are the 2 Stocks to Buy Today - 24/7 Wall St. - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Rigetti Computing (RGTI): At the Quantum Inflection Point A Leveraged Play on Institutional Adoption - AInvest - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- NTT Research and Tohoku University Collaborate on Quantum Enhanced Coherent Ising Machines - Quantum Computing Report - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Better Quantum Computing Stock: D-Wave Quantum vs. IonQ - MSN - July 14th, 2025 [July 14th, 2025]
- Better Quantum Computing Stock: D-Wave Quantum vs. IonQ - The Motley Fool - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- ZenaTech Creates First Quantum Computing Prototype Enabling Disruptive AI Drone Speed and Precision for Future Commercial and US Defense Applications... - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Nearly two-thirds of organizations consider quantum computing as the most critical cybersecurity threat in 35 years - Capgemini - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Why Quantum Computing Stock Skyrocketed 69.3% in June -- and What Comes Next? - Nasdaq - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing - Why BTC isn't the biggest worry for COINBASE:BTCUSD by Profit_Through_Patience - TradingView - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- 3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Could Lead the Quantum Computing Revolution - The Motley Fool - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- D-Wave, Yonsei, Incheon team up to boost quantum computing - Evertiq - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Is Rigetti Computing the Top Quantum Computing Stock for the Second Half of 2025? - The Motley Fool - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Why Quantum Computing Stock Skyrocketed 69.3% in June -- and What Comes Next? - The Motley Fool - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- SuperQ Quantum Computing Inc. to Begin Trading on CSE as QBTQ - TipRanks - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Why Quantum Computing Stock Skyrocketed 69.3% in June -- and What Comes Next? - AOL.com - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- This Quantum Computing Stock Just Raised $1 Billion And Analyst Says Its Only Getting Started - IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) - Benzinga - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Nearly two-thirds of organizations consider quantum computing as the most critical cybersecurity threat in 3-5 years - The Manila Times - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing (NASDAQ:QUBT) Shares Down 2.2% - Here's What Happened - MarketBeat - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Billionaires Are Buying This Quantum Computing Stock Hand Over Fist (Hint: It's Not IonQ or D-Wave Quantum) - The Motley Fool - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Individual defects in superconducting quantum circuits imaged for the first time - Scientific Computing World - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Horses for Courses: Where Quantum Computing Is, and Isnt, the Answer - RealClearDefense - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Satoshi-Era Bitcoin (BTC) Whale's $8B Move Explained Amid Looming Quantum Computing Threat to Crypto - Blockchain News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing's 'Q-Day' Threat: Is Your Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Portfolio Facing Annihilation? - Blockchain News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Filing Warns of Quantum Computing Threat: Could Q-Day Make BTC and ETH Worthless? - Blockchain News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing's "Q-Day" Poses Existential Risk to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), Expert Warns - Blockchain News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Threat: 25% of Bitcoin (BTC) at Risk as Polyhedra (ZKJ) Crashes 80% After Liquidity Attack - Blockchain News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Scientists Just Simulated the Impossible in Quantum Computing - SciTechDaily - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- 3 Quantum Computing Stocks with Potential to Beat the Market 7/7/2025 - TipRanks - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- JPMorgan's quantum computing team lost its leaders & there is a mystery - eFinancialCareers - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Cracking the quantum code: Light and glass are set to transform computing - Phys.org - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- IBM Backs $26M Funding for Quantum Computing Error Correction Startup - IoT World Today - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Horses for courses: where quantum computing is, and isnt, the answer - The Strategist | ASPI's analysis and commentary site - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- D-Wave and Rigetti: Cantor Chooses the Best Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy - Yahoo Finance - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing's Surge: Navigating Tariffs and Tech Tailwinds for Profitable Growth - AInvest - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- 2 Top Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy in July - The Motley Fool - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- D-Wave and Rigetti: Cantor Chooses the Best Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy - TipRanks - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- QEDMA Raises $26 Million With Participation From IBM to Tackle Quantum Computing Errors - The Quantum Insider - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Stocks QBTS and IONQ Rally as Cantor Assigns Buy Rating - TipRanks - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Meet the Monster Quantum Computing Stock That Continues to Crush IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and Nvidia - The Motley Fool - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Meet the Monster Quantum Computing Stock That Continues to Crush IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and Nvidia - Nasdaq - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Rigetti Computing Is Skyrocketing Today -- Is the Quantum Computing Stock a Buy? - Yahoo Finance - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Why Quantum Computing Stock Skyrocketed Today - The Motley Fool - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- The European Commission wants Europe to become the world leader in quantum computing within the next five years - PC Gamer - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Cracking the quantum code: light and glass are set to transform computing - research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Rigetti Computing Is Skyrocketing Today -- Is the Quantum Computing Stock a Buy? - The Motley Fool - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Investments: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity? - Yahoo - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- BlackRock Warns Quantum Computing Threatens Bitcoin Security - IoT World Today - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Rigetti Computing Is Skyrocketing Today -- Is the Quantum Computing Stock a Buy? - Nasdaq - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- MegazoneCloud & Classiq Boost Quantum Computing In Korea - Quantum Zeitgeist - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Rigetti vs. D-Wave: Which Quantum Computing Stock Has Better Prospects? - Zacks Investment Research - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- IonQ: The Next Disruptive Opportunity In Quantum Computing (NYSE:IONQ) - Seeking Alpha - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Rigetti vs. D-Wave: Which Quantum Computing Stock Has Better Prospects? - Yahoo Finance - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Terror-Linked Qataris Could Gain Quantum Computing Technology via Billion-Dollar Deal - Middle East Forum - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Progress: Scaling Fidelity And Algorithms For Practical Advantage - Quantum Zeitgeist - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- The Best Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy Right Now - The Motley Fool - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Threat Drives New Encryption Standards and Mathematical Challenges. - Quantum Zeitgeist - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- IBM's Quantum Leap: Can AI and Quantum Computing Drive a New Era of Growth? - AInvest - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Why IonQ Could Be the Quantum Computing Leader to Multiply Your Investment by 2035 - AInvest - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- European Investment Fund Invests 30M ($35.1M USD) in Quantonation II for Quantum Technologies and Deep Physics - Quantum Computing Report - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- 3 Quantum Computing Stocks That Could Deliver Decades of Explosive Growth - The Motley Fool - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- QUANTUM COMPUTING INVESTIGATION INITIATED by Former Louisiana Attorney General: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Investigates the Officers and Directors of... - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- KT and HEQA Security Partner to Deploy Quantum Key Distribution for Telecom Infrastructure - Quantum Computing Report - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Quantum computing on the horizon: What leaders need to know. - McKinsey & Company - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- 1 Quantum Computing Stock That Is a Glaring Buy, According to Wall Street - Yahoo Finance - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- 3 Quantum Computing Stocks on Verge of a Breakout: QBTS, IONQ, QUBT - Yahoo Finance - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Achieves First Real-World Milestone in Image Recognition - ScienceBlog.com - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- IonQ vs IBM: Which Quantum Computing Stock Is the Better Buy Today? - Yahoo Finance - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Want to Invest in Quantum Computing? 2 Stocks That Are Great Buys Right Now. - MSN - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- 1 Quantum Computing Stock That Is a Glaring Buy, According to Wall Street - MSN - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- 1 Quantum Computing Stock That Is a Glaring Buy, According to Wall Street - The Motley Fool - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Are Quantum Computing Stocks Becoming the Next AI? - The Motley Fool - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- F.D. Flam: Quantum computing could be the future of drug development - Pioneer Press - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing Completes $200 Million Private Placement. Why the Stock Is Falling. - Barron's - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Want to Invest in Quantum Computing? 2 Stocks That Are Great Buys Right Now. - Yahoo Finance - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- The Smartest Way to Play Quantum Computing May Already Be in Your Portfolio - The Motley Fool - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- Quantum Computing News: New Roadmaps, Real Timelines, and Rising Stocks - TipRanks - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- Will Quantum Computing Stocks Soar in the Second Half? - The Motley Fool - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- 2 Quantum Computing Stocks That Could Become Monsters - The Motley Fool - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- UK Government Commits 670 Million ($908.6 Million USD) Over 10 Years to Advance Quantum Computing Capabilities - Quantum Computing Report - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]
- Is Quantum Computing (QUBT) Stock a Buy on This Bold Technological Breakthrough? - Yahoo Finance - June 24th, 2025 [June 24th, 2025]