Michio Kaku: How quantum computers could turn the impossible into reality

- We all know that digital computers have changed the entire landscape.

Nations which can use digital computers are rich, they're powerful, they can communicate, they can revamp the economy.

However, we're now in the initial stages of the next revolution.

- [Interviewer] How quantum computers will change everything.

- The next revolution will be quantum computers that will make the digital computer look like an abacus.

In other words, the future of digital computers is to wind up in the garbage can.

We're talking about a new generation of computers, the ultimate computer, a computer that computes on atoms, the ultimate constituents of matter itself.

Quantum computers have the capability of changing every aspect of our life.

The economy, health, transportation, everything could be changed by quantum computers.

Take a look, for example, of food supply.

We rely upon fertilizers.

There was a green revolution that took place that allows us to feed the population of the world.

But that green revolution is slowly coming to an end.

We need a second green revolution, being able to take nitrogen from the air and combine it to make ammonia and fertilizer.

And already we're trying to use quantum computers to unlock the secret of how to make fertilizer from nitrogen.

Also, take a look at energy.

Fusion power could one day give us unlimited energy almost for free.

We're talking about an energy source where the basic fuel is sea water, fusion plants burn sea water, the hydrogen of sea water, to create fabulous amounts of energy without nuclear waste, without the threat of a meltdown.

And quantum computers may be essential to stabilize the vacuum and hydrogen so that they don't cause an accident or they don't fall apart.

So in other words, quantum computers can affect the economy in basic ways.

Not to mention medicine.

We create medicines by trial and error.

We create hundreds of chemicals and test them one by one in a Petri dish.

This is old fashioned slow, but that's all there is.

That's all we can do.

In the future, we'll be able to model diseases at the molecular level.

We'll be able to do molecular experiments in the memory of a computer rather than in a Petri dish, trying to look at hundreds of chemicals to find out which one is medically relevant.

In other words, we're talking about turning medicine upside down.

The question is, who's involved in this race to perfect quantum computers?

And the answer is everyone.

If you're not part of the race, you could be irrelevant in the future.

All the big names of the computer industry, Google, IBM, Honeywell, they're all in the game because they realize that you could become irrelevant.

Wall Street is always looking for the next big investment, and this could be it.

All of a sudden, we have companies that just started a few years ago becoming multi-billion dollar companies as they try to put their flag on the mountain of quantum computers.

This is now big business.

This is one of the hottest stocks that are available on the stock market now.

In other words, it's a race.

All the big players in Silicon Valley are part of this race because if they're not Silicon Valley could become the next rust belt.

We have something called Moore's Law, which says that computer power doubles every 18 months.

We take it for granted.

Every Christmas, your computers are twice as powerful as the previous Christmas.

The economy is based on that.

But Moore's law is falling apart.

Moore's law is getting slower and slower.

Finally, it'll flatten out. And let me ask you a question.

Would you upgrade your computer knowing that it's just as powerful as the last few generations of computers?

No, this could cause a depression in the computer industry.

We physicists called attention to this decades ago, but we said that, well, we still have a few more decades left, but it's coming.

It's coming because transistors are getting smaller and smaller.

A transistor today could be, let's say 20 atoms across.

When you start to hit five atoms across, then electrons can then hop across and create short circuits.

And Moore's law comes to an end.

We're now gradually approaching that limit.

When you look at the curve of the exponential growth of computer power, it's quite remarkable.

This is where modern technology has taken a leap, but now we're beginning to level off just like we predicted, because of the quantum theory.

Electrons are not dots.

Electrons are waves.

Waves are probability, and they're unstable if you start to get electrons and they analyze them at the level of an atom.

So in other words, Silicon Valley has to confront the fact that Moore's law will eventually collapse.

So for all these reasons, we have to go beyond digital computers to atomic computers.

Computers that compute on atoms rather than on transistors.

Right now, anyone who's interested in security is interested in the quantum computers is quantum computers in principle, have the power to crack any digital code.

Think about that for a moment.

All the data that is sent on the internet is coded.

National Secrets of Nations are encoded in these codes, which often require you to factorized very large numbers, but that's what quantum computers can do.

They can factorized very large numbers and thereby crack almost any code that is based on digital technology.

That's why the FBI, the CIA, and all national governments interested in computer security are following this very closely.

So for example, let's say you want to have a secret that's encoded.

You put a code on it, and the code says, you have to factorized a digit that is, let's say 50 digits long.

It would take perhaps a few hundred years for a digital computer to factorized a number that is 50 digits long.

A quantum computer may be able to do that almost instantly.

And so you see the anxiety that this is being created for people involved with computer security.

You're not talking about being able to break into any other computer on the earth that is based on digital technology.

Now, we're not there yet.

So you don't have to worry that someone's gonna steal all your secrets tomorrow, but it will come.

And when it comes, we're gonna have to have a major revision of how we code our most treasured national secrets.

Ordinary digital computers compute on zeros and ones, zeros and one.

But if you take a look at medicine, you take a look at energy, you take a look at molecules, they're not based on zeros and ones, zeros and ones.

They're based on electrons.

And electrons can be smooth, not zeros and ones, zeros and ones.

And these electrons, how come they have so much computational power?

Because they could be in two places at the same time.

Now, at this point, you may say to yourself, that's ridiculous, that's stupid.

How can you be two places at the same time?

But that's exactly what electrons do.

Electrons can be multiple places simultaneously at the same time.

That's what gives quantum computers their power.

They compute on parallel universes, not just one universe, the universe that we're accustomed to, but an infinite number of parallel universes.

Now this sounds like something from Marvel Comics, but then the question is, where did Marvel comics get this idea?

Marvel comics got this idea from quantum physics because the fundamental basis of quantum physics relies upon the fact that the electron can be in multiple places simultaneously at the same time.

One of the big goals of quantum computers, not just creating new forms of energy, new products, new forms of transportation, but perhaps unlocking the secret of life itself.

You realize that life is based on molecules, not zeros and ones, zeros and ones.

Molecules that in turn can create Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer.

These diseases are beyond the reach of digital computers.

But hey, this is what quantum computers do.

They work with molecules, they work with atoms, they work with electrons.

And that's why we hope that one day we'll be able to cure the incurable using quantum computers.

Now, some people say, won't that put doctors, chemists and biologists out of a job?

Won't they be on the unemployment line 'cause we don't need them anymore?

No, in the future, the people on the unemployment line will be chemists and biologists who do not use quantum computers.

The winners of this game will be biologists, chemists, mathematicians who use quantum computers in the same way that a carpenter uses a hammer.

A hammer does not replace the carpenter.

The hammer simply increases the power of the carpenter.

And that's what quantum computers will do for medicine, transportation, energy, you name it, quantum computers will be there.

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