@ the IERP® Global Conference, August 2023
Dr Manas Mukherjee, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor, Centre of Quantum Technologies, focused on the Quantum Tipping Point and how far away (or close) it is. His presentation briefly covered thousands of years’ worth of human and technological development, spanning the first agricultural revolution, the beginning of pottery and the invention of the plough; the beginning of mathematics and writing; to the industrial revolution, the advent of electricity and telecommunications, the discovery of penicillin, DNA and nuclear energy; the development of high-speed computers, space travel and the Genome Project.
He singled out the invention of the transistor as one of the most pivotal points of human development, as it led to computing. “This happened sometime in the 1950s,” he said. “It moved us to the Silicon Age.” The revolution in silicon followed, with the size of the transistor halving every one and a half years. “This has nothing to do with the laws of nature or anything else, other than being an industry-fixed target,” he said. “Everyone followed – that’s how we ended up with an Intel 13th generation chip.” The technology that goes into transistors is based on Newtonian physics but there are limits. Today, transistors have become so small that they are close to the size of an atom.
However, computers today are not running as power-efficiently as they should; this is a known problem and cannot be solved by modern mechanics, he added. This fast-paced development is spurring the rise of AI. Remarking that AI was not new, having been introduced in the 1970s, he said that what we were seeing now was the more widespread application of AI because computers have become more powerful. However, all this data cannot be handled by classical or traditional means. “The only alternative we have is Quantum,” he said. Quantum science was discovered in the 1900s, he said, giving a brief explanation of the rules of quantum mechanics.
Understanding quantum mechanics brought about the first quantum revolution. “Now, a new resource of quantum mechanics is being put into practice to form quantum technology,” he said, expanding further on the use of quantum technology with a few examples. Quantum technology speeds up processes. “That’s what quantum brings in,” Dr Mukherjee said. “Imagine what you used to do in multiple operations – you can now do in one.” Research in quantum mechanics has gone from the belief that single atoms cannot be controlled (1952), to developing methods for measuring and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature (2012).
“In 2012, Serge Haroche and David J Wineland showed that the states of individual atoms or individual light particles could be manipulated, which means you can have an operating quantum computer,” he said. What may be seen in the next few years, he said, will be quantum networks – classical computers linked to quantum computers, quantum registers, sensors and communication channels, all linked by quantum nodes. Noting that quantum e-distribution was already being deployed by a few countries to build networks, he said, “This is secured by the principles of quantum mechanics, not by mathematical tools but by the physics of it.”
Quantum computing was still at an early stage but quantum computers are gaining traction, and corporations are financing it in a big way because powerful quantum algorithms can only be applied by quantum computers. “There is no classical counterpart,” he stressed, adding that one of the ‘holy grails’ of quantum computing was breaking the current cryptosystem. “If you have a quantum computer large enough, you can break this (code) in a matter of hours,” he said. “This means any banking or transacting system will be immediately vulnerable to attack.” This is not just for current transactions but for those stored by encrypting.
More countries, too, are investing in the technology. Dr Mukherjee said that global quantum initiatives stood at about US$24.4 billion in 2021. China is estimated to have invested about US$10 billion; Germany, US$3.1 billion; France, US$2.2 billion; the UK, US$1.3 billion; the US, US$1.2 billion; Canada, US$1.1 billion; and the European Quantum Flagship, US$1.1 billion. In Asia, India leads the field with an estimated US$1 billion worth of quantum initiatives, while Russia, Japan and Taiwan have invested US$663 million, US$470 million and US$282 million, respectively. Singapore is not very far behind, with US$109 million invested in quantum initiatives.
Sector-wise, quantum computing is already impacting finance in the areas of portfolio optimisation; risk management in insurance; network optimisation in logistics; and route optimisation in the aerospace industry. Drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry is being assisted by quantum computing. In chemistry, it is being applied to catalyst design; in finance, market simulation; and in the study of fluid dynamics, in aerospace design. Search optimisation in marketing is being assisted by quantum computing. Similarly, with machine learning, quantum computing is being applied to AI algorithms, and to track fraud, trading and risk in finance.
Despite these applications, Dr Mukherjee said that the quantum advantage for real-world problems was still missing. He suggested a three-prong strategy that could convert risk to opportunity; contribute to the further development of quantum computing; and allow users to play the role of early movers in the industry. With accelerated growth happening in development and innovation, he said that in five or six years, it was likely that there would be a computer powerful enough to manage some of the current problems. Describing it as ‘low-hanging fruit’ he identified quantum distribution as one of the cybersecurity measures that could be used for monitoring incidents of eavesdropping.
Sensors, too, have become much more powerful and sensitive, and could even now be applied to brain imaging. “Brain imaging used to be done using a gantry before,” he said. “With quantum sensors, you can wear the sensors and move around because they are small enough to be attached to your body. However, he closed with a warning. “We have to take into account the vulnerabilities of the disruptive technologies that could develop,” he said. “They could pose a risk that could be very hard to quantify.”
