The race to find the smartest computer that mankind has ever known has just begun. This situation is very promising, because this fierce competition has already created a million investments in search of a technology that will change everything. They have entered the labs of Google and IBM to learn about their bets in this wonderful new technological age.

The lab is located in an isolated place, in a small unidentified office. It has a chaotic and old air, a bit vintage. Loose cables, screwdrivers, computer parts, whiteboards with mathematical formulas, disassembled computers ... Inside a red bell, connected by dozens of cables, there is a kind of imposing candle of half a meter, which creates a chip, chip, smooth and continuous chip.

It’s hard to believe that in this stagnant place, about two hours from Los Angeles, in October, a big technological milestone that jumped to the front page of every newspaper happened. That’s why, at Google’s quantum computer lab in Santa Barbara (USA), the company managed to operate this giant lamp in 3 minutes and 20 seconds to calculate random numbers, which would require the world’s most powerful computer to do thousands of years to do this. This lamp holds a quantum chip and its achievement (called “quantum dominance”) is for Sergio Boixo of Leon, Google’s leading scientist in quantum computer theory. It can be said that the society we live in is moving towards an industry that will change radically. Rivals and independent researchers believe the comparison may be exaggerated because the quantum revolution is still a long way off, but all experts agree that when this is achieved, everything will change.

It’s the story of a fascinating and mysterious world where we know the rules of physics, the bounces of a ball, or the fall of an apple don’t work. The subatomic world is a kind of miracle. In the race for quantum computing, countries like China and the United States and companies like IBM and Google have invested billions of dollars in building a car. Juani Bermejo, a researcher at the University of Granada, calls it “quantum power”.

The key to operation

The key to understanding this revolutionary technology lies in the workings of it. The computers we know work with binary programming, with "0" or "1" functions. But quantum bits or cubes have three special characteristics. One is overlap, where two cubes can be all combinations of “0” and “1” at once, multiplied exponentially. It’s similar to what happens when you turn a coin: it’s a combination of heads and tails, according to IBM research director Darío Gil. The second idea is called “confusion” and is very romantic: the state of the cubes with each other cannot be described independently. In Gil’s example, if two interspersed coins are rotated, we will see in measuring them that if one is expensive, the other will be the same, and if one is a cross, the other will be the same; the probabilities are not independent. The third idea, that of interference, is what happens with sea waves, which have peaks and valleys that can interfere with the peaks and valleys of other waves. "It's a different world. It's the first time a fork has been made in the computer category," Gil explained. “For me, we are at the most emotional moment in the world of information technology in the last 50 or 60 years,” this expert added.

There are things that classic computers do very well; and supercomputers do better. But quantum computers are in another dimension. Quantum computers could simulate new molecules for the pharmaceutical industry. For example, in a global pandemic like covid-19 to get medication in real time. In addition, we can find out the origin of the universe, discover new materials, improve electric car batteries, make better use of energy ...