The massive amount of processing power generated by computer manufacturers has not yet been able to quench our thirst for speed and computing capacity. In 1947, American computer engineer Howard Aiken said that just six electronic digital computers would satisfy the computing needs of the United States. Others have made similar errant predictions about the amount of computing power that would support our growing technological needs. Of course, Aiken didn't count on the large amounts of data generated by scientific research, the proliferation of personal computers or the emergence of the Internet, which have only fueled our need for more, more and more computing power.

Will we ever have the amount of computing power we need or want? If, as Moore's Law states, the number of transistors on a microprocessor continues to double every 18 months, the year 2020 or 2030 will find the circuits on a microprocessor measured on an atomic scale. And the logical next step will be to create quantum computers, which will harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks. Quantum computers have the potential to perform certain calculations significantly faster than any silicon-based computer.

Scientists have already built basic quantum computers that can perform certain calculations; but a practical quantum computer is still years away. In this article, you'll learn what a quantum computer is and just what it'll be used for in the next era of computing.

You don't have to go back too far to find the origins of quantum computing. While computers have been around for the majority of the 20th century, quantum computing was first theorized less than 30 years ago, by a physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory. Paul Benioff is credited with first applying quantum theory to computers in 1981. Benioff theorized about creating a quantum Turing machine. Most digital computers, like the one you are using to read this article, are based on the Turing Theory. Learn what this is in the next section.

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How Quantum Computers Work | HowStuffWorks

Imagine being able to cheaply and easily suck carbon directly out of our atmosphere. Such a capability would be hugely powerful in the fight against climate change and advance us towards the ambitious global climate goals set.

Surely thats science fiction? Well, maybe not. Quantum computing may be just the tool we need to design such a clean, safe and easy-to-deploy innovation.

In 1995 I first learned that quantum computing might bring about a revolution akin to the agricultural, industrial and digital ones weve already had. Back then it seemed far-fetched that quantum mechanics could be harnessed to such momentous effect; given recent events, it seems much, much more likely.

Much excitement followed Googles recent announcement of quantum supremacy: [T]he point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers cant, regardless of whether those tasks are useful.

The question now is whether we can develop the large-scale, error-corrected quantum computers that are required to realize profoundly useful applications.

The good news is we already concretely know how to use such fully-fledged quantum computers for many important tasks across science and technology. One such task is the simulation of molecules to determine their properties, interactions, and reactions with other molecules a.k.a. chemistry the very essence of the material world we live in.

While simulating molecules may seem like an esoteric pastime for scientists, it does, in fact, underpin almost every aspect of the world and our activity in it. Understanding their properties unlocks powerful new pharmaceuticals, batteries, clean-energy devices and even innovations for carbon capture.

To date, we havent found a way to simulate large complex molecules with conventional computers, we never will, because the problem is one that grows exponentially with the size or complexity of the molecules being simulated. Crudely speaking, if simulating a molecule with 10 atoms takes a minute, a molecule with 11 takes two minutes, one with 12 atoms takes four minutes and so on. This exponential scaling quickly renders a traditional computer useless: simulating a molecule with just 70 atoms would take longer than the lifetime of the universe (13 billion years).

This is infuriating, not just because we cant simulate existing important molecules that we find (and use) in nature including within our own body and thereby understand their behaviour; but also because there is an infinite number of new molecules that we could design for new applications.

Thats where quantum computers could come to our rescue, thanks to the late, great physicist Richard Feynman. Back in 1981, he recognized that quantum computers could do that which would be impossible for classical computers when it comes to simulating molecules. Thanks to recent work by Microsoft and others we now have concrete recipes for performing these simulations.

One area of urgent practical importance where quantum simulation could be hugely valuable is in meeting the SDGs not only in health, energy, industry, innovation and infrastructure but also in climate action. Examples include room-temperature superconductors (that could reduce the 10% of energy production lost in transmission), more efficient processes to produce nitrogen-based fertilizers that feed the worlds population and new, far more efficient batteries.

One very powerful application of molecular simulation is in the design of new catalysts that speed up chemical reactions. It is estimated that 90% of all commercially produced chemical products involve catalysts (in living systems, theyre called enzymes).

Annual CO2 emissions globally in 2017

A catalyst for scrubbing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere could be a powerful tool in tackling climate change. Although CO2 is captured naturally, by oceans and trees, CO2 production has exceeded these natural capture rates for many decades.

The best way to tackle CO2 is not releasing more CO2; the next best thing is capturing it. While we cant literally turn back time, [it] is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock, according to Torben Daeneke at RMIT University.

There are known catalysts for carbon capture but most contain expensive precious metals or are difficult or expensive to produce and/or deploy. We currently dont know many cheap and readily available catalysts for CO2 reduction, says Ulf-Peter Apfel of Ruhr-University Bochum.

Given the infinite number of candidate molecules that are available, we are right to be optimistic that there is a catalyst (or indeed many) to be found that will do the job cheaply and easily. Finding such a catalyst, however, is a daunting task without the ability to simulate the properties of candidate molecules.

And thats where quantum computing could help.

We might even find a cheap catalyst that enables efficient carbon dioxide recycling and produces useful by-products like hydrogen (a fuel) or carbon monoxide (a common source material in the chemical industry).

We can currently simulate small molecules on prototype quantum computers with up to a few dozen qubits (the quantum equivalent of classical computer bits). But scaling this to useful tasks, like discovering new CO2 catalysts, will require error correction and simulation to the order of 1 million qubits.

Its a challenge I have long believed will only be met on any human timescale certainly by the 2030 target for the SDGs if we use the existing manufacturing capability of the silicon chip industry.

At a meeting of the World Economic Forums Global Future Councils last month a team of experts from across industry, academia and beyond assembled to discuss how quantum computing can help address global challenges, as highlighted by the SDGs, and climate in particular.

As co-chair of the Global Future Council on Quantum Computing, I was excited that we were unanimous in agreeing that the world should devote more resources, including in education, to developing the powerful quantum computing capability that could help tackle climate change, meet the SDGs more widely and much more. We enthusiastically called for more international cooperation to develop this important technology on the 2030 timescale to have an impact on delivering the SDGs, in particular climate.

So the real question for me is: can we do it in time? Will we make sufficiently powerful quantum computers on that timeframe? I believe so. There are, of course, many other things we can and should do to tackle climate change, but developing large-scale, error-corrected quantum computers is a hedge we cannot afford to go without.

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How quantum computing could beat climate change - World Economic Forum

OYSTER BAY, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As 2019 winds down, predictions abound on the technology advancements and innovations expected in the year ahead. However, there are several anticipated advancements, including 5G wearables, quantum computing, and self-driving trucks, that will NOT happen in the first year of the new decade, states global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research.

In its new whitepaper, 54 Technology Trends to Watch in 2020, ABI Researchs analysts have identified 35 trends that will shape the technology market and 19 others that, although attracting huge amounts of speculation and commentary, look less likely to move the needle over the next twelve months. After a tumultuous 2019 that was beset by many challenges, both integral to technology markets and derived from global market dynamics, 2020 looks set to be equally challenging, says Stuart Carlaw, Chief Research Officer at ABI Research. Knowing what wont happen in technology in the next year is important for end users, implementors, and vendors to properly place their investments or focus their strategies.

What wont happen in 2020?

5G Wearables: While smartphones will dominate the 5G market in 2020, 5G wearables wont arrive in 2020, or anytime soon, says Stephanie Tomsett, 5G Devices, Smartphones & Wearables analyst at ABI Research. To bring 5G to wearables, specific 5G chipsets will need to be designed and components will need to be reconfigured to fit in the small form factor. That wont begin to happen until 2024, at the earliest.

Quantum Computing: Despite claims from Google in achieving quantum supremacy, the tech industry is still far away from the democratization of quantum computing technology, says Lian Jye Su, AI & Machine Learning Principal Analyst at ABI Research. Quantum computing is definitely not even remotely close to the large-scale commercial deployment stage.

Self-Driving Trucks: Despite numerous headlines declaring the arrival of driverless, self-driving, or robot vehicles, very little, if any, driver-free commercial usage is underway beyond closed-course operations in the United States, says Susan Beardslee, Freight Transportation & Logistics Principal Analyst at ABI Research.

A Consolidated IoT Platform Market: For many years, there have been predictions that the IoT platform supplier market will begin to consolidate, and it just wont happen, says Dan Shey, Vice President of Enabling Platforms at ABI Research. The simple reason is that there are more than 100 companies that offer device-to-cloud IoT platform services and for every one that is acquired, there are always new ones that come to market.

Edge Will Not Overtake Cloud: The accelerated growth of the edge technology and intelligent device paradigm created one of the largest industry misconceptions: edge technology will cannibalize cloud technology, says Kateryna Dubrova, M2M, IoT & IoE Analyst at ABI Research. In fact, in the future, we will see a rapid development of edge-cloud-fog continuum, where technology will complement each other, rather than cross-cannibalize.

8K TVs: Announcements of 8K Television (TV) sets by major vendors earlier in 2019 attracted much attention and raised many of questions within the industry, says Khin Sandi Lynn, Video & Cloud Services Analyst at ABI Research. The fact is, 8K content is not available and the price of 8K TV sets are exorbitant. The transition from high definition (HD) to 4K will continue in 2020 with very limited 8K shipments less than 1 million worldwide.

For more trends that wont happen in 2020, and the 35 trends that will, download the 54 Technology Trends to Watch in 2020 whitepaper.

About ABI Research

ABI Research provides strategic guidance to visionaries, delivering actionable intelligence on the transformative technologies that are dramatically reshaping industries, economies, and workforces across the world. ABI Researchs global team of analysts publish groundbreaking studies often years ahead of other technology advisory firms, empowering our clients to stay ahead of their markets and their competitors.

For more information about ABI Researchs services, contact us at +1.516.624.2500 in the Americas, +44.203.326.0140 in Europe, +65.6592.0290 in Asia-Pacific or visit http://www.abiresearch.com.

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What WON'T Happen in 2020: 5G Wearables, Quantum Computing, and Self-Driving Trucks to Name a Few - Business Wire

Tis the end of the year when pundits typically dust off the crystal ball and take a stab at what tech, and its impact on consumers,will look like over the next12 months.

But we're also on the doorstep of a brand-new decade, which this time around promisesfurther advances in 5G networks, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, self-driving vehicles and more, all of which willdramatically alter the way we live, work and play.

So what tech advances can we look forward to in the new year? Heres what we can expect to see in 2020 and in some cases beyond.

(Photo: Getty Images)

The next generation of wireless has showed up on lists like this for years now. But in 2020, 5G really will finally begin to make its mark in the U.S., with all four major national carriers three if the T-Mobile-Sprint merger finally goes through continue to build out their 5G networks across the country.

Weve been hearing about the promise of 5G on the global stage for what seems like forever, and the carriersrecently launched in select markets. Still, the rollout in most places will continue to take time, as will the payoff: blistering fast wireless speeds and network responsiveness on our phones, improved self-driving cars and augmented reality, remote surgery, and entire smartcities.

As 2019 winds down, only a few phones can exploit the latest networks, not to mention all the remaining holes in 5G coverage. But youll see a whole lot more 5G phone introductions in the new year, including what many of us expect will be a 5G iPhone come September.

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When those holes are filled, roughly two-thirds of consumers said theyd be more willing to buy a 5G-capable smartphone, according to a mobile trends survey by Deloitte.

But Deloitte executive Kevin Westcott also said that telcos will need to manage consumer expectations about what 5G can deliver and determine what the killer apps for 5G will be.

The Deloitte survey also found that a combination of economic barriers (pricing, affordability) and a sense that current phones are good enough, will continue to slow the smartphone refresh cycle.

Are you ready for all the tech around you to disappear? No, not right away.The trend towards so-called ambient computing is not going to happen overnight, nor is anyone suggesting that screens and keyboards are going to go away entirely, or that youll stop reaching for a smartphone. But as more tiny sensorsare built into walls, TVs, household appliances, fixtures, what you're wearing, and eventually even your own body, youll be able to gesture or speak to a concealed assistant to get things done.

Steve Koenig, vice president of research at the Consumer Technology Association likens ambient computing to Star Trek, and suggests that at some point we won't need to place Amazon Echo Dots or other smart speakers in every room of house, since well just speak out loud to whatever, wherever.

Self-driving cars have been getting most the attention. But its not just cars that are going autonomous try planes and boats.

Cirrus Aircraft, for example, is in the final stages of getting Federal Aviation Administration approval for a self-landing system for one of its private jets, and the tech, which I recently got to test, has real potential to save lives.

How so? If the pilot becomes incapacitated, a passenger can press a single button on the roof of the main cabin. At that moment, the plane starts acting as if the pilot were still doing things. It factors in real-time weather, wind, the terrain, how much fuel remains, all the nearby airports where an emergency landing is possible, including the lengths of all runways, and automatically broadcasts its whereaboutsto air traffic control.From there the system safely lands the plane.

Or consider the 2020 version of the Mayflower, not a Pilgrim ship, but rather a marine research vessel from IBM and a marine exploration non-profit known as Promare. The plan is to have the unmanned shipcross the Atlantic in September from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts. The ship will be powered by a hybrid propulsion system, utilizing wind, solar, state-of-the-art batteries, and a diesel generator. It plans to follow the 3,220-mile route the original Mayflower took 400 years ago.

Two of Americas biggest passions come together. esports is one of the fastest growing spectator sports around the world, and the Supreme Court cleared a path last year for legalized gambling across the states. The betting community is licking their chops at the prospect of exploiting this mostly untapped market. Youll be able to bet on esports in more places, whetherat a sportsbook inside a casino or through an app on your phone.

One of the scary prospects about artificial intelligence is that it is going to eliminate all these jobs. Research out of MIT and IBM Watson suggests that while AI will for sure impact the workplace, it wont lead to a huge loss of jobs.

That's a somewhat optimistic take given an alternate view thatAI-driven automation is going to displace workers.The research suggests thatAI will increasingly help us with tasks that can be automated, but will have a less direct impact on jobs that require skills such as design expertise and industrial strategy. The onus will be on bosses and employeesto start adapting to newroles and to try and expandtheirskills, effortsthe researchers say will beginin the new year.

The scary signs are still out there, however. For instance, McDonalds is already testing AI-powered drive-thrus that can recognize voice, which could reduce the need for human order-takers.

Perhaps its more wishful thinking than a flat-out prediction, but as Westcott puts it, Im hoping what goes away are the 17 power cords in my briefcase. Presumably a slight exaggeration.

But the thing we all want to see are batteries that dont prematurely peter out, and more seamless charging solutions.

Were still far off from the day where youll be able to get ample power to last all day on your phone or other devices just by walking into a room. But over-the-air wireless charging is slowly but surely progressing. This past June, for example, Seattle company Ossiareceived FCC certification for a first-of-its kind system to deliver over-the-air power at a distance. Devices with Ossias tech built-in should start appearing in the new year.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphone featuring a foldable OLED display.(Photo: Samsung)

We know how the nascent market for foldable phones unfolded in 2019 things were kind of messy.Samsungs Galaxy Fold was delayed for months following screen problems, and even when the phone finally did arrive, it cost nearly $2,000. But that doesnt mean the idea behind flexible screen technologies goes away.

Samsung is still at it, and so is Lenovo-owned Motorola with its new retroRazr. The promise remains the same: let a devicefold or bend in such a way that you can take a smartphone-like form factor and morph it into a small tablet or computer. The ultimate success of such efforts will boil down to at least three of the factors that are always critical in tech: cost, simplicity, andutility.

Data scandals and privacy breaches have placed Facebook, Google and other others under the government's cross-hairs, and ordinary citizens are concerned. Expect some sort of reckoning, though it isn't obviousat this stage what that reckoningwill look like.

Pew recently put out a report that says roughly 6 in 10 Americans believe it is not possible to go about their daily lives without having their data collected.

"The coming decade will be a period of lots of ferment around privacy policy and also around technology related to privacy," says Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. He says consumers will potentially have more tools to give them a bit more control over how and what data gets shared and under whatcircumstances. "And there will be a lot of debate over what the policy should be."

Open question: Will there be national privacy regulations, perhaps ones modeled after the California law that is set to go into effect in the new year?

It isnt easy to explain quantum computing or the field it harnesses, quantum mechanics. In the simplest terms, think something exponentially more powerful than what we consider conventional computing, which is expressed in1s or 0s of bits. Quantum computing takes a quantum leap with whatare known as "qubits."

And while IBM, Intel, Google, Microsoft and others are all fighting for quantum supremacy, the takeaway over the next decadeis that thetechmay helpsolve problems far faster than before, fromdiagnosing disease to crackingforms of encryption, raising the stakes in data security.

Quantum computing: Google claims quantum computing breakthrough

What tech do you want or expect to see? Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter.

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AI, 5G, 'ambient computing': What to expect in tech in 2020 and beyond - USA TODAY

So, Ive been doing a bunch of talking in terms of decades in the last couple of posts, about the physics defining eras in the 20th century and the physics defining the last couple of decades. Ill most likely do another decadal post in the near future, this one looking ahead to the 2020s, but the end of a decade by definition falls at the end of a year, so its worth taking a look at physics stories on a shorter time scale, as well.

New year 2019 change to 2020 concept, hand change wooden cubes

You can, as always, find a good list of important physics stories in Physics Worlds Breakthrough of the Year shortlist, and there are plenty of other top science stories of 2019 lists out there. Speaking for myself, this is kind of an unusual year, and its tough to make a call as to the top story. Most of the time, these end-of-year things are either stupidly obvious because one story towers above all the others, or totally subjective because there are a whole bunch of stories of roughly equal importance, and the choice of a single one comes down to personal taste.

In 2019, though, I think there were two stories that are head-and-shoulders above everything else, but roughly equal to each other. Both are the culmination of many years of work, and both can also claim to be kicking off a new era for their respective subfields. And Im really not sure how to choose between them.

US computer scientist Katherine Bouman speaks during a House Committee on Science, Space and ... [+] Technology hearing on the "Event Horizon Telescope: The Black hole seen Round the World" in the Rayburn House office building in Washington, DC on May 16, 2019. (Photo by Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

The first of these is the more photogenic of the two, namely the release of the first image of a black hole by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration back in April. This one made major news all over, and was one of the experiments that led me to call the 2010s the decade of black holes.

As I wrote around the time of the release, this was very much of a piece with the preceding hundred years of tests of general relativity: while many stories referred to the image as a shadow of the black hole, really its a ring produced by light bending around the event horizon. This is the same basic phenomenon that Eddington measured in 1919 looking at the shift in the apparent position of stars near the Sun, providing confirmation of Einsteins prediction that gravity bends light. Its just that scaling up the mass a few million times produces a far more dramatic bending of spacetime (and thus light) than the gentle curve produced by our Sun.

This Feb. 27, 2018, photo shows electronics for use in a quantum computer in the quantum computing ... [+] lab at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Describing the inner workings of a quantum computer isnt easy, even for top scholars. Thats because the machines process information at the scale of elementary particles such as electrons and photons, where different laws of physics apply. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

The other story, in very 2019 fashion, first emerged via a leak: someone at NASA accidentally posted a draft of the paper in which Googles team claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy. They demonstrated reasonably convincingly that their machine took about three and a half minutes to generate a solution to a particular problem that would take vastly longer to solve with a classical computer.

The problem they were working with was very much in the quantum simulation mode that I talked about a year earlier, when I did a high-level overview of quantum computing in general, though a singularly useless version of that. Basically, they took a set of 50-odd qubits and performed a random series of operations on them to put them in a complicated state in which each qubit was in a superposition of multiple states and also entangled with other qubits in the system. Then they measured the probability of finding specific output states.

Qubit, or quantum bit, illustration. The qubit is a unit of quantum information. As a two-state ... [+] system with superposition of both states at the same time, it is fundamental to quantum computing. The illustration shows the Bloch sphere. The north pole is equivalent to one, the south pole to zero. The other locations, anywhere on the surface of the sphere, are quantum superpositions of 0 and 1. When the qubit is measured, the quantum wave function collapses, resulting in an ordinary bit - a one or a zero - which effectively depends on the qubit's 'latitude'. The illustration shows the qubit 'emitting' a stream of wave functions (the Greek letter psi), representing the collapse of the wave function when measured.

Finding the exact distribution of possible outcomes for such a large and entangled system is extremely computationally intensive if youre using a classical computer to do the job, but it happens very naturally in the quantum computer. So they could get a good approximation of the distribution within minutes, while the classical version would take a lot more time, where a lot more time ranges from thousands of years (Googles claim) down to a few days (the claim by a rival group at IBM using a different supercomputer algorithm to run the computation). If youd like a lot more technical detail about what this did and didnt do, see Scott Aaronson.

As with the EHT paper, this is the culmination of years of work by a large team of people. Its also very much of a piece with past work quantum computing as a distinct field is a recent development, but really, the fundamental equations used to do the calculations were pretty well set by 1935.

Glowing new technology in deep space, computer generated abstract background, 3D rendering

Both of these projects also have a solid claim to be at the forefront of something new. The EHT image is the first to be produced, but wont be the last theyre crunching numbers on the Sag A* black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and theres room to improve their imaging in the future. Along with the LIGO discovery from a few years ago, this is the start of a new era of looking directly at black holes, rather than just using them as a playground for theory.

Googles demonstration of quantum supremacy, meanwhile, is the first such result in a highly competitive field: IBM and Microsoft are also invested in similar machines, and there are smaller companies and academic labs exploring other technologies. The random-sampling problem they used is convenient for this sort of demonstration, but not really useful for anything else, but lots of people are hard at work on techniques to make a next generation of machines that will be able to do calculations where people care about the answer. Theres a good long way to go, yet, but a lot of activity in the field driving things forward.

So, in the head-to-head matchup for Top Physics Story of 2019, these two are remarkably evenly matched, and it could really go either way. The EHT result has a slightly deeper history, the Google quantum computer arguably has a brighter future. My inclination would be to split the award between them; if you put a gun to my head and made me pick one, Id go with quantum supremacy, but Id seriously question the life choices that led you to this place, because theyre both awesome accomplishments that deserve to be celebrated.

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What Was The Most Important Physics Of 2019? - Forbes