Photo Credit: parliament.uk
By: Roxanne Heston, Columnist
“Quantum technology” offers nuanced opportunities and challenges to the United States in domains like cybersecurity, scientific research, and reconnaissance.[i] Although the technology is difficult to understand, it is worthwhile for policymakers to grasp its fundamentals and implications. Fortunately, unlike the quantum property of particles themselves, the technology’s potential applications need not be ephemeral.
Quantum technology is based on a peculiar way subatomic particles act.[ii] Present-day computers represent information in binary bits, compiling code programmers write into machine-readable strings of 0s and 1s. We generally think of particles as sitting in one of two states so, in computer chips, we use each particle to represent one bit. However, some particles can exist in many different states simultaneously – that is, they can exist in a “superposition.” If properly harnessed, this property could make it possible to represent additional bits of information using the same particle. Computer chips that take advantage of this property use “quantum bits,” or “qubits:” particles that can represent not just 0 or 1, but both (or neither) 0 and 1 simultaneously.[iii]
But another feature of qubits – called entanglement – makes them all the more powerful. When in close proximity, qubits sync up, meaning that each particle’s state determines the states of the others.[iv] Physicists are still trying to understand why this happens.[v] However, the result is clear: the more entangled the particles, the more positions each can assume at once, and therefore the more bits each can represent. Albert Einstein, mystified by the finding, called this property “spooky.”[vi]
One might get the intuition for bits and qubits by thinking of coins instead of particles. Imagine developing a code language using coins to represent words or phrases. You can create a chart assigning a different meaning to each different state of the coin(s).
If you start with just one nickel, you can only change one feature: the object’s orientation. Limited to “face up” or “face down,” you can answer just one binary question – say, with a “yes” or a “no.” You only have one bit of information. To say more – i.e., to add additional bits – you would need additional nickels. With two nickels you could assign one meaning to “#1 face up, #2 face up,” a different meaning to “#1 face up, #2 face down,” and so on. This is like particles in current computing methods.
But what if you could personalize the coins, i.e., make them small or big, copper or silver, etc., and associate each combination of features with a different meaning? The more features introduced, the more bits of information conveyable per coin. Quantum computing is like a multitudinous version of this scenario. It leverages the many additional positions each particle can assume, thereby saying more without occupying additional space.
Accordingly, when companies become skilled at manufacturing quantum computers, they will pack lots of information in a tiny space. This may not seem important, since we can already do amazing things with small, fast, cheap computers. The cell phone in your pocket demonstrates that. But shrinking offers unique capabilities and has serious implications for a range of computational fields, facilitating far faster and vaster computation than we thought possible just decades ago.[vii]
Some national security implications are already clear – namely, for encryption. Right now, much of what we send on the internet – e.g., emails, files, bank transactions — we keep private by obscuring them in transit. When we press “send,” our computers turn messages into machine-readable payload for transit and then human-readable messages once they have arrived at their intended destinations. This jumbling and unjumbling process is “encryption” and relies on solving complex math problems. [viii] If hackers intercept encrypted messages in transit today, they have little chance of understanding their meaning, since the problems obscuring the messages require an impossible amount of computing power to solve.[ix] Quantum computers, however, will not find the math prohibitively difficult, letting hackers unlock sensitive information vital to national security.[x]
While much of the present conversation fixates on decryption, this quirk of particle physics has many potential security applications.[xi] When negotiating deals, diplomats could add many complex factors to computer simulations. During an epidemic, biosecurity experts could conduct virtual chemistry experiments to discover an antidote. While formulating a response to an emerging militant group, defense officials could quickly teach computers to recognize enemy combatants in satellite footage.[xii] Quantum science also offers a solution to quantum-enabled encryption cracking: quantum cryptography. This advance would make it possible to send information that is not just computationally expensive to crack but provably uncrackable.[xiii] The quantum phenomena might also aid radar jamming, precision timing, and autonomous navigation. The potential commercial uses of quantum technologies are similarly diverse and transformative.[xiv]
The current state of quantum development in the US and abroad is incredibly complex and understudied. Understanding the importance of quantum technology is the first step to giving it the consideration it merits.
Herman, A. (2018). The Quantum Alliance Initiative, Hudson Institute: 1-2.
[ii] (2018). The right squeeze for quantum computing. Phys.org. Phys.org, Hokkaido University.
[iii] Herman, A. (2018). The Quantum Alliance Initiative, Hudson Institute: 1-2.
[iv] Elsa B. Kania, J. K. C. (2018). Quantum Hegemony? China’s Ambitions and the Challenge to U.S. Innovation Leadership. Washington, D.C., Center for a New American Security: 1-5.
[v] Ridddle (2017). What If the Earth Does Not Exist? YouTube.
[vi] Elsa B. Kania, J. K. C. (2018). Quantum Hegemony? China’s Ambitions and the Challenge to U.S. Innovation Leadership. Washington, D.C., Center for a New American Security: 1-5.
Herman, A. (2018). The Quantum Alliance Initiative, Hudson Institute: 1-2.
[viii] Kehl, D. (2015) Encryption 101. Slate
[ix] Kania, E. B. (2018). Quantum Hegemony? China’s Ambitions and the Challenge to U.S. Innovation Leadership. CNAS Podcasts. P. Scharre. Washington, D.C., Center for a New American Security.
[x] Robert Morgus, J. S. (2018). “What Policymakers Need to Know About Quantum Computing.” Council on Foreign Relations https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-policymakers-need-know-about-quantum-computing.
[xi] Herman, A. (2018). The Quantum Alliance Initiative, Hudson Institute: 1-2.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Ibid.
[xiv] Elsa B. Kania, J. K. C. (2018). Quantum Hegemony? China’s Ambitions and the Challenge to U.S. Innovation Leadership. Washington, D.C., Center for a New American Security: 1-5.