we live in a day and age where humans are building machines to do things we still can't even dream of we like to think about this is the place where we're going to build the future of computing and here at Google's quantum computer lab in Santa Barbara California that future is right around the corner okay wow I'm just blown away before we try to tackle the mindboggling question of what a quantum computer even is here's a quick crash course on how it works in classic Computing behind everything on screens our phones or CPUs is a
code behind a code that basically boils down to either a one or a zero on or off and that's a bit but quantum computers run on Quantum bits or cubits which aren't so binary think more like nature or a waveform or a coin that spins so fast it's both heads and tails all at the same time and that is the magic behind a cubit that allows us in our low energy state to operate not only one or zero but a superp position of mul States it's almost everything in between one zero both at the same
time neither everything in between and then comes a process of shrinking and etching cubits in aluminum onto tiny silicon Wafers I can't even see them with my naked eye these little plus signs that's a those are cubits and stacking cubits leads to exponential power the 100 Cubit quantum computer could perform over 1,000 billion billion billion calculations almost instantly the sound that we're hearing is that yes the sound that we're hearing that is the sound of the refrigerators cooling their quantum computers to temperatures of just thousands of a degree above absolute zero it's colder than space
it's colder than outer space only at Beyond Frozen temperatures can these cubits start to magically vibrate in frigid entangled Harmony and then comes the really complicated question what can it quantum computer actually do how does this type of computing power compared to I don't know I mean a phone it's different it's a different application got it I can't FaceTime with that but I could do some crazy M imagine that you've got a a super tall closet has a million drawers in it and a sock is hidden in one of the drawers on average you're going
to have to open 500,000 drawers to find the sock with a quantum computer you'd only need to open a thousand drawers on average to find a sock now that's a hard concept of follow because it almost defies logic but the dream is to someday use that kind of quantum magic for things like modeling Fusion to create unlimited energy designing proteins to cure disease or unlocking new physics the possibilities of quantum computers are seemingly endless and that's why Google is teaming up with the x prise foundation offering $5 million to whoever can come up with the
best real world application but for now one of its most Supreme Feats is something that sounds so easy at first I thought my three-year-old could do it think of a number any number in the whole world uh five five yeah is that your final answer but ask the top physicists in the world and coming up with a truly random number has been pretty much impossible for humans until now we as human beings subconsciously put in a method to the madness computers need an algorithm that is a way a method but the method itself defies the
random number generation as for the future of computing just like trying to imagine how these massive machines that filled rooms with tubes and couldn't even play Pong still helped us with the math to get us to the Moon trying to Envision where quantum computers could lead is an exercise in science fiction some problems are are calculated to take 10,000 years 100,00 a billion years so what we're trying trying to do is create a computer that works in a totally different way access you guys are building a warp dri for some types of problem now that
same warp drive is maybe going to be terrible at some of the other problems that we use classic compers for the warp drive is not great at parallel parking but getting across the Galaxy much more efficient exactly thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social Med media
