Google Just Revolutionised Computing and Didn’t Tell Us. Why?

On the 23rd of October this year, something very special happened in one of Google’s laboratories. A new generation of quantum computer was tested. A machine unlike any humanity has ever seen and more powerful than Summit, the world’s largest super computer. Google’s computer is about the same size as a large refrigerator. To put this into context, Summit currently occupies a space equivalent to a football field.

What Google's computer did was solve the world's most difficult computational problem. A problem that would take existing super computers around ten thousand years to solve. The Google computer solved the problem in just under 3 minutes and 27 seconds. Impressed yet?

What is quantum computing?

So how does it work and why is this computer so revolutionary? For the non-technical, I’ll try and keep it simple. Normal computers rely on bits or more accurately 1’s and 0’s to perform their calculations. Quantum computers operate differently and use quantum bits, called qubits. Where a normal computer bit is either in a state of 1 or 0, Qubits can be both 1 and 0 at the same time. It’s called superposition and is a state unique to the quantum world. Superposition multiplies exponentially as qubits are connected to each other. The more qubits you can string together, the more powerful the quantum computer becomes.

This whole process needs to be cooled to a temperature of absolute zero to reduce quantum leakage and errors and it is in this field that Google engineers have made the most progress in the last year, outstripping their competitors. Their engineers built a microprocessor named Sycamore to house the qubits. Measuring about 10 mm across, it consists of 54 qubits connected to each other in a lattice pattern. Sycamore was made using aluminum and indium parts sandwiched between two silicon wafers.

To perform the 10,000 year calculation, Sycamore was able to connect 53 of the qubits in a quantum state. The result was cracking the world’s hardest math problem in under four minutes. For those who are interested, a technical paper on the test was published in the science journal Nature. You can read the article here.

The silent whimper of progress

You might be wondering why you never saw this event plastered all over the news and covered in-depth by every news outlet on the planet. It’s an astounding technological feat, surpassing even the moon landing and it is a game-changer. A massive game-changer. So why the radio silence?

I suspect Google is all too well aware of what it has mastered. Ushering in a new age of computing is no small feat given our rapid advancements over the last fifty years. Google’s 53 qubit quantum computer has in one single iteration taken us from the wheelbarrow to a supersonic jet; that’s the equivalent leap in technology.

The applications for its use are limitless. Cold fusion reactors immediately come to mind. This enticing promise of limitless free energy with no nuclear waste has so far eluded us. Thanks to quantum computing, we now have the processing power to possibly solve the riddle of cold fusion and provide the earth with abundant, cheap, clean energy.

The IOT or Internet of Things can now realize its connected vision, thanks to almost zero lag 5G and the prospect of a future filled with limitless computational power. From a digital perspective, Google just enabled us on a hitherto unprecedented scale. So why the radio silence?

I suspect Google is all to well aware of not only the potential for good, but also the potential for harm, it’s new computer brings. The first and most glaring issue is one of digital security.

Cyber security under threat

Current digital security is built around 128-bit encryption and is basically bulletproof, depending on whether it is public or private key encryption. You could, given enough resources and time, have cracked 128-bit public key encryption. By enough, I mean supercomputers and weeks of dedicated processing time. Google’s Quantum computer wouldn’t need longer than a few minutes in its current form. I say current as the new machine is a 53 qubit processor. The next iterations will see 256 qubit processors, drastically reducing the required processing time. The potential for harm is enormous.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is already evaluating new methods for quantum cryptography. A draft standard is expected by 2024. That’s five years away to combat a technology that in 2018 no one perceived would pose a threat for another decade. To read a more detailed article by American Scientist entitled Does Quantum Computing Pose a Cyber Threat follow this link. The article is outdated as it was published prior to Google’s test, but still makes for interesting reading.

Foreign governments are currently powerless against this sort of computational might. No current encryption exists that can withstand an attack from a second or third-generation quantum computer. Nuclear launch systems, military-grade software, and financial exchanges are all completely vulnerable to attack. It’s a new world and one where nuclear supremacy has been made redundant overnight, and yet, no one batted an eyelid.

With great responsibility…

It’s the IT industry's Spiderman moment and Google will be all too well aware of the image of the United States abroad. Google has gifted America the most powerful ‘weapon’ to ever see the light of day at a time when America’s foreign relations lie in tatters. The open question now is how it will wield this great power? With responsibility? One would hope so.

The government aside, Google has its own trust issues, with increased numbers of users turning away from their products and platform over privacy issues. Will the government be comfortable with this new technology in the hands of a monopolistic business giant? No one knows how deep the actual ties run between Google and the US military and the possibility exists that the development of the quantum computer was a joint venture. If so, this would be of even more concern to foreign governments. Perhaps this is one of the most telling reasons for the loud silence.

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai had this to say on his blog about the test, after comparing it to the launch of the first rocket to touch space.

“For those of us working in science and technology, it’s the ‘hello world’ moment we’ve been waiting for – the most meaningful milestone to date in the quest to make quantum computing a reality,”

For you and I, mere mortals, we are faced with having to adapt to a new kind of technology and until such time as digital security manages to catch up and offer a quantum-proof form of encryption, we need to be aware that our secrets are no longer safe. Or to be more exact, they are a lot less safe than they used to be.