There are two major technologies driving what will be the future of our digital world. Both AI and Quantum represent technical areas that will completely change the lives of anyone who experiences their applicative use. These changes will have an even more fundamental impact on those of us who thrive in the IT arena. We will be the ones to implement sane practices, teach use models, and provide much of the physical infrastructure itself.
Personally, I have been observing the progress of each area through both a technical lens and a marketing lens, and I have noticed a couple of interesting aspects of each when juxtaposed. AI has much more marketing hype than Quantum and it’s not even close. However, one could still make a case that Quantum might carry the potential to be even more revolutionary when all is said and done.
I posit that the reason for this disparity is that people have a pre-existent notion of what AI is, yet almost no one seems to have even heard of what Quantum can do. AI has had the benefit of sci-fi exposure through books and movies for years. We all understood, to some extent, the concept behind “Skynet becoming self-aware,” and Data’s “emotion chip.” Even the name “Artificial Intelligence” gets you into the headspace. I do hope, however, that the typically dystopian models of AI coming from Hollywood are not society’s main learning center for one of the most important technologies of our time. I already hear the laments from my AI-literate colleagues, frustrated at how many false prophets are at the pulpit of the AI community.
The way Quantum is currently framed has people tuning out before the second sentence (which by the way, I hope you didn’t)! How about if I align it with the transporter on the Enterprise from Star Trek? Would that pique your interest? I must confess, though, I was a physics major at the University of Rhode Island, so I have been interested in this stuff for years, but with my last class taking place more than 40 years ago, I could hardly call myself literate in today’s Quantum revolution. I would also, however, be lying if I claimed my studies ended after graduation. I have been individually tracking the broad advances in Quantum and nuclear fusion since my departure from URI, and although it may seem like not much has happened for decades, with a little more research, one would know that this is not true. It is important to know that the research community has been more than hard at work the whole time, despite the recency bias of information.
At the highest level, people should understand that there are two distinct Quantum areas of interest for the R&E community: “Computing” and “Networking.” Many people align ‘Quantum Computing’ with the development of the next supercomputer, but that implies an evolution that is neither accurate, nor does it do justice to the science behind the scenes. This is a whole new ball game, solving problems we couldn’t even attempt with the most powerful systems of today. Ironically, the most talked-about use case is actually a societal threat. The decryption capability of Quantum Computing is one that has the power to render all public encryption keys useless, thereby exposing our global financial systems to hackers. This event has been termed Q-Day, sparking a race to beat the finalized production of widespread Quantum Computing with a full rewrite of the currently used public-key encryption to prevent mass hacking and data hemorrhages. It’s a race with an indeterminant finish line, though, as every new development seems to push the timeline further away. That “day,” once thought to be sometime in the mid- to late-2030s now is predicted by Google to be in 2029. It is envisioned that Quantum Computing will emerge as ‘hybrid computing clusters’ wherein a traditional supercomputer infrastructure would be perpetually connected to a quantum node adjunct. A finalized system such as this would allow for a supercomputer to perform the tasks it is good at while offloading other, more specific, use-case tasks.
Quantum Networking is a completely different and distinct field potentially representing a fundamental shift to the currently constituted fabric of networks in our world of Research and Education Networks. In Quantum Networks, Fiber Optics are used to transport very fragile, quantum-entangled photons wherein the end result is a zero-latency, encrypted wide area infrastructure. Its primary use case is to scale Qubit Compute clusters to scale Quantum infrastructure. These networks are envisioned to handle Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and direct connections for Distributed Quantum Computers. Our Quilt community is already experimenting in the early implementations of this science, literally transmitting photons across wide area fiber network. Some of the recent research at Northwestern has scientists asking important questions about the possibility of coinciding quantum network flows and classical waves, potentially an economic game changer for the trajectory of this research. It is important to note that today most trials operate as a parallel network to the current infrastructure, over “very dark” pristine strands with no other traffic.
All in all, the amount of work being done in Quantum Computing and Networking is phenomenal. In contrast to AI, only those close to research and development know what is upon us with Quantum. I actually like the fact that it is more niche on the hype scale, even if it is mainly due to the lack of understanding by the general populace. The “post-Quantum” security threat is getting some publicity, but it feels muted given the potential damage and we haven’t completely formalized the most practical solution, which looks to be a software implementation of a new cryptography. Recent deployment announcements from important vendors like Cisco, Cloudflare, Fortinet and Internet2 show promise for this methodology, even though specs are still in draft form.
I just hope that people learn that even though breaking encryption keys is the easiest use case to describe quantum systems, it is not the overall point at all. There is a vast universe of discovery just beyond the surface, leading to a deep understanding of how all matter truly behaves and interacts.