The Race to Harness Quantum Computing's Mind-Bending Power | The Future With Hannah Fry

hidden amongst these snow covered Hills is a secretive institution home to a revolutionary machine that can harness physics so strange it sounds like magic this is IBM's research facility it's where some of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of computer science have happened and probably going to be home to a few more because this is where they build quantum computers their potential is huge promising breakthroughs in Material Science medicine fundamental physics and more but there is a dark side because they will come with the ability to decrypt all internet communication experts say there is now

a Quantum arms race between the United States and its biggest economic rival China I'm Professor Hannah fry mathematician and writer I want to know where Quantum technology will take us and with International Security under threat who will come out on top [Music] this is the research headquarters for one of the oldest companies in Tech IBM they've been inventing new Computing technology here since the 1960s it's like the Jetson meets The [Music] Flintstones Quantum scientist Olivia Lanes is showing me IBM's newest experimental machine this big shiny Behemoth is IBM Quantum system 2 sounds like it's on

what is the big deal there I mean why not just build an ordinary supercomputer it's a totally different avenue it's not just supercomputers but better or AI but more powerful it's entirely different way of computing the big difference is the computer's ability to harness the mysterious ious effects of quantum physics standard computers they calculate by using billions of tiny little on andof switches known as bits now these things they're very reliable they're very accurate and they work together in sequence so if you ask a standard computer to solve a maze it will do so by

checking through every possible path one by one until it finds a solution now depending on the size of the maze that could take seconds or minutes or potentially for a really big maze even years a quantum computer on the other hand Works a little bit differently there the bits are known as Quantum bits or qits and rather than just being on or off a cubit can be held in something called a super position where it can be both on and off at the same time now okay I know that that doesn't really make a lot

of sense but unfortunately that is just how physics Works down at the atomic level so go with me this bizarre ability of a cubit to be in two states at once means that a series of cubits can solve lots of calculations simultaneously and so if you ask a quantum computer to solve a maze it means it can consider all possible routs at once giving you the answer in an instant it could allow a quantum computer to complete in minutes computation so complex that it would take today's supercomputers millions of years but that's not the only

reason they're a GameChanger for science I think what it really comes down to is that nature is quantum mechanical when you get down to molecular and atomic interactions nature does not obey classical physics it's just a very crude approximation and if we really want to understand how nature evolves in time we have to have a system that obeys quantum physics so I guess this finally gives us the opportunity to do simulations down at the level of atoms and when you have that I mean you can design drugs at the level of atoms that's right and

design materials batteries and we haven't had this before we've never had that I think when Quantum Computing comes up in conversation people are excited about it but they're excited about the the amount of power it gives you about how quickly you can do computations because okay sure all of that stuff might be true but we should be thinking of this as though someone has just invented the telescope and all of a sudden we can see and understand things at a scale that we just did not have access to before that's the ambition at least quantum

computers cannot yet perform useful calculations better than a supercomputer because in practice getting even a handful of cubits to give you a reliable answer is phenomenally difficult now you got oh my God whoa this is IBM's lab where they test out new hardware a place where we can see the guts of the machine oh that is extraordinary this is what system to looks like inside yeah what are we looking at then I think a lot of of people have a slight misconception and they see you know this whole gold shiny thing they think this is

a quantum computer that's actually not true this is the quantum computer so this tiny little thing right this is the Heron chip this is the 133 cubits that I am holding in the palm of my hand how much is that worth a lot don't drop it I'm going to try not to the chip contains the cubits that carry out the computation and it's fair to say they're a little fussy we're trying to change the energy state of the Cubit between zero and one in a very controlled way so any type of outside energy that might

change it slightly in a way except for what we're trying to do will break your algorithm and give you the wrong answer outside energy includes any heat to preserve the delicate Quantum state of the Cubit the chip must be kept extremely cold this tangle of goldplated pipes and wires is in fact a cooling system that chills the chip to just above absolute zero for comparison the cosmic microwave background in space is way warmer that's orders of magnitude warmer oh my goodness so it is the coldest thing in the known universe which is incomprehensibly C but

these these guys like it they like it focus on your work stop paying attention to any of the energy around you that's right IBM say they'll unlock quantum's full potential by 2033 as you can imagine it's been an expensive Endeavor do you have any idea how much IBM will have spent on this Quantum program uh we haven't broken out but I think it's fair to say it's like obviously many billions of dollars of investment you know our company spends close to $7 billion a year in R&D right and today in our world of technology if

you're not investing at that scale is very hard to be a global leader but you do have competition right how much are you looking over your shoulder at what everyone else is doing oh we pay Keen attention right to the entire ecosystem but look we take the perspective because we've been sort of leaders and Pioneers of these field is that we want an industry like we don't want to be you know alone on this how much do you collaborate with with other companies though like Google and Microsoft who are also in this space we collaborate

a lot uh externally for us collaborating on is is like at the heart of making an ecosystem it's back to the idea of creating an industry do you collaborate with Chinese companies as well no we do not oh go on well I think we we acknowledge the fact that in this technology uh in Quantum right but we're seeing it happen by the way in other areas like semiconductors and so on there is not only a big economic uh Dimension but there's a big National Security implication as well Quantum Falls squarely Within the category of like

sensitive Technologies from from that perspective how important is it for the US to be the the leaders in this it's critically important I I but and I think that that is recognized in a bipartisan manner one of the things we're witnessing is that we've seen the elevation of technology to the same level of geostrategic importance as trade or military alliances Quantum Computing is without a doubt one of the top technologies that the United States needs to lead for now the United States maintains Supremacy in the development of quantum computers but its biggest rival is fast

catching up China are betting big they've invested over $15 billion more than three times any other country they have dozens of new research institutes committed to Quantum and hold more than half of all patents in Quantum technology hey hi there how you doing security expert Anna Pugi has been advising the US government on how not to fall behind China really does view Science and Technology as a National Asset it talks about not leading not just leading but dominating in these key areas does the US not see science as a National Asset as well I don't

think we have the same kind of comprehensive strategic plan that brings together all facets of society and really has that longer term investment what we are facing is it's not an even and Level Playing Field our researchers are essentially up against the funding of a nation state what are we talking about here in terms of the magnitude of difference of funding some examples that folks have given me is okay I have a lab I have five to six maybe four to six graduate students in my lab at any given time there the equivalent Labs have

you know 50 100 graduate students or postdocs the US is hitting back I've made sure that the most advanced American Technologies can't be used in China and thanks to our chips and science act the United States is investing more in research and development than ever before whoever is the first to realize the potential of quantum computers will wield incredible power but it's a double-edged sword because a world with quantum computers could be a world without Secrets pretty much all internet communication is based on scrambling it using a secret code otherwise known as encryption and a

lot of it uses a very clever mathematical trick involving in prime numbers what we do you take two prime numbers let's say 17 and 31 and then you multiply them together to give you a code in this case 527 now that bit is very straight forward very easy for computers to do that multiply numbers together what is much harder is if you only have the long number working out what those two secret primes were the only way that you can do with classical computers is by checking through all the prime numbers just to see if

they work one after the other after the other a common type of encryption RSA uses prime numbers that are hundreds of digits long to crack those codes it would take a conventional computer trillions of years that's really the Obstacle of encryption it's not it's impossible just takes a really really long time this is where Quantum Computing comes in because quantum computers using superposition can simultaneously run numerous calculations at the same time and can take something like this down to being crackable within just a few minutes it means that encrypted data could be hacked in no

time few are more afraid of a mass global data breach than the banking industry Dr Philip inura is head of quantum technology at HSBC we process3 3.5 trillion pounds worth of payments every year so cryptography is a big deal for us how much of a catastrophe would this be if if people just sat back and did nothing Well ultimately you're going to have customers accounts being breached which means things like identity theft and forgent transactions being stolen money being stolen um that's then going to roll into Financial losses customers will lose money the banks will

lose money but I think ultimately the biggest risk of all is the the element of trust if customers can't trust their Bank to keep their um accounts and their money secure as well as their data then it's kind of an existential risk yeah I mean that is a fundamental part of banking can you be absolutely sure that this hasn't happened already I mean okay if I had a quantum computer I could read everything I'm not sure I would tell people about it no you probably wouldn't I think it's very unlikely that anyone's got a quantum

computer powerful enough right now to do this but there may be something called a store now decrypt later or harvest now decrypt later type of attack and and this is kind of the idea that um State actors or malicious entities right now can start intercepting our data and storing it and just keeping it ready um for the time the point in time when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer arrives are we talking about National Security consent here is that is that that ultimately where the big worry is that's probably the the number one area um that

we should be concerned about because um you know State actors are most likely going to Target uh National Security kind of infrastructure to to scrape and the cipher information State Secrets will be uncovered um you'll know who all the spies are you'll know who all the spies are if you suddenly um lose that secrecy and that security then it causes all sorts of vulnerabilities on a person level on a national level from a security perspective from a commercial perspective and so you know this is a big big deal HSBC say that doing nothing is simply

not an option the bank has been testing a way to secure its data against an attack from quantum computers internet data today is sent by laser pulses in an optical fiber this is Dr Andrew Shields head of quantum technology for toiba in general fiber networks are very secure um but they are vulnerable to um tapping if I introduce a small band into the fiber you can see some of the light is not leaking out and actually a hacker can use that they can introduce a small band to tap out some of the light and measure

that to uh recover the data so that's all you need then is just access to the cable indeed it's very straightforward Goodness Me Andrew has built a device that utilizes The Strange World of quantum physics to send data in a way he claims can never be hacked it's called Quantum key distribution this is it this is it yes what this box is doing is it's sending single photons through an optical fiber into the BT Network and we use that to form encryption keys and those encryption keys are then been used to secure data s between

here and the data center in barkshire the device generates a secret code using single particles of light photons which are sent one at a time down a fiber optic cable a fundamental law of quantum physics is that if You observe a photon you change its Quantum State and that means that if an eavesdropper tries to intercept the key the code will be changed rendering it unusable the device already uses Telecom company BT's existing fiber Network to send sensitive files across London to a data center over 30 miles away tell me about the information that you're

sending using this method at the moment then so in the case of HSBC it's financial data but we've done other trials with hospitals for instance where they've been sending medical scan data um or with um governments where they've been sending some government data do you feel this sense of urgency from companies then even though we're not quite there yet with quantum computers yes they absolutely are there's an increasing um realization that the quantum computer is coming how far away do you reckon it is uh well now that's a very difficult question um to answer if

I was a betting man maybe I would say um 5 to seven years there are no May here it's not if this is going to happen it's when it's going to happen and it's the total acceptance that when it happens our existing communication systems are no longer fit for purpose and that puts you in a position where you have no choice no choice but to find something else that works and is secure some have made more progress than others in 2016 China shocked the World by launching a satellite capable of sending quantum Keys over far

greater distances than fiber optics it's part of a wider quantum network that China has built connecting Banks government and Industry across the country leaving other nations scrambling to catch up on the gleaming streets of Singapore the quantum revolution has found fertile ground scientists here want to build an unhackable Network that can be commercialized so anyone can use it Professor Alexander Ling runs the center for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore a government funded group of scientists working on all sorts of quantum technology they told me uh that I would get to see some

Nano satellites okay I think this is even more Nano than I was expecting this is over 200 times lighter than China's Quantum satellite okay tell me about the experiment then what's the big aim the Big Goal over here is we want to build a global network uh where we can actually distribute Quantum signals around the world we can distribute Quantum signals using optical fiber except that there's a distance limit to it um we can't repeat those Quantum signals so we we think that if you have Satellites with optical fiber networks uh you can actually you

know build a more comprehensive Network around the world so then when you send up a rocket you presumably have like a number of days you sort of put them out where you yes yes what we're doing in Singapore is to test whether similar technology can go on much smaller satellites you can imagine that if it works you can have a fleet of smaller satellites that's more cost effective and that makes the deployment of such a system uh more likely his plan is to fire single photons into space and Back Again via a network of satellites

and telescopes these Quantum Keys would provide unhackable Global Communications so this is your fancy Photon catcher that's right this is a telescope that's going to receive the signals from the satellite long-distance communication is just one part of Professor Ling's work they also collaborate with us and Chinese companies Quantum technology was developed in an era when international relations was more relaxed and put it that way you know it started in the you know late 80s early '90s and everyone was open to you know having an exchange of people and ideas at that time has that desire

for collaboration continued or has it been sort of shut down a bit more because of the geopolitical situation we find ourselves in I think definitely everyone's aware that there's tension geopolitical tensions and people from time to time talk about export controls and things like that everybody you know seems to have high expectations for when Quantum technology will deliver you know those benefits uh if you come in with controls too early before a lot of the problems are worked out you are probably going to be pushing the know the date of deployment the date when you

see those benefits much further into the future I'm kind of squashing The Innovation as it's happening that's fine scientists understand how quantum computers could supercharge their discoveries Banks and governments see the risks and the potential for economic growth but will a high stakes duel for Supremacy really Define the future of global power I think the rhetoric around this is always framed as a Quant race right between two giant superpowers who are throwing everything they have at it but I sort of don't think that this is like races that we've had before I don't think this

is like the space race or the nuclear arms race because I don't think that we're in a situation where you can only have one winner the quantum future is about building a scientific tool that allows us to see and understand the universe down at the level of atoms in a way that we have just never had access to before and okay maybe I'm just being optimistic but I think that that is something that all of humanity will stand to benefit from [Music] [Music]