Nobel prize in physics: What is quantum computing? | DW News

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to a trio of scientists for their discoveries that show quantum physics in action. John Clark, Michel Desbarais, and John Martinez all work at universities in the U.S. Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical theory that describes the behavior of matter and light. The Nobel Committee pointed out that there is no advanced technology today that does not use either quantum mechanics or quantum physics. To find out more about this, let's speak now to Ebba Cobarnier. She is the director of the Swedish Quantum Life Science Center at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. It's good to have you with us. You're involved in a field of quantum mechanics called quantum computing. Could you explain in simple terms what that is and how it could lead to new technologies? Yes, thank you very much. So quantum computers have qubits. Our classical computers have bits. And the difference is that our classical computers can only be zero or one, but our quantum computers with our qubits, they can be zero and one at the same time. And this actually gives us a massive parallelism where we can compute many, many, many combinations at once. Okay, that is a great way to explain it. And I want to pick up on that with what the Nobel Committee said today about the winners. They said the winners brought, and I'm quoting here, the weirdness of quantum mechanics to the human scale. What do you think the committee meant by that? Yes, it's actually, to us, it's very counterintuitive to understand that something can be zero and one at the same time. So the superposition of qubits, of quantum bits in quantum computers, and also the entanglement and tunneling, it's very counterintuitive. The physicists have difficulties in understanding it, but of course it's evidence, and you can definitely calculate it. Could we say it's kind of like cognitive dissonance? You know, having two opposing ideas in the same mind, is that one way to understand quantum physics? Yes, the quantum mechanics, it's really, it's even difficult to visualize, to understand. But hopefully one day, maybe it will just be like a puzzle. We will just intuitively understand it as well. So maybe we will see the world in a little bit of a different way when it sort of lands, maybe like a puzzle. Well, tell us about the work that is being done at your center to discover practical applications for quantum mechanics. Yes, we are of course extremely pleased that the Laureates have received this prize, so that it's very obvious with the quantum technologies, their high relevance within many different fields, within our field, within health and life science, within energy, within finance, within material science. But for example, within our field here, within health and life science, some examples of these computations are that if you have a brain tumor and you need radiotherapy, of course it's extremely important. There are an enormous amount of parameters, for example, the intensity, the angle, the dose, so that the radiotherapy only affects the brain tumor, so it doesn't hurt the surrounding tissue. And for example, these kind of combinatorial calculations, quantum computers are very good at. So there's a high potential in that area. And then some other examples are, for example, with CAR T cell therapies. If you have cancer in the body and different patients react differently to these therapies, so developing a prediction model for which patient react, how the patients react is also a big combinatorial problem. And there's a great potential there too. Wow. I mean, that sounds very promising. So since we're talking about a science that is beyond binary, when do you think we're going to see this science become part of our everyday lives? That's the very big question. I wish I could say that exactly when we have the powerful quantum computers and hopefully soon, because there are enormous amounts of money put into developing these quantum computers. And like we were into that there are different platforms with neutral atoms. There are iron traps that are the superconducting quantum computers. So investing in these different technologies will give us these kinds of powerful computers, hopefully soon. Yeah. I hope that you are right. Ebba Cabernet, director of the Swedish Quantum Life Science Center. Fascinating discussion, and I appreciate you bringing quantum physics down to a level that we can all understand beyond binary. Thank you. Thank you.