Many people may not know it, but we live in a time where the first quantum computers have been created - and they’re pretty damn cool. Why? Because while regular bits are limited to only two boring values, QBITs can take near infinite values and operate singularly or in harmony with each other. This outstanding property gives rise to a new kind of algorithms (and a lot of fun!). Follow me on a journey from Zuses Z3 computer and Schrödingers cat to supercooled quantum processors and parallel universes - no PhD in physics required.

1. Alasdair.Collinson@senacor.com @blalasaadri#VoxxedBristol #VoxxedQuantum
Alasdair Collinson
Senacor Technologies AG
The
Quantum
Computers
Are Coming!

2. Senior Software Developer at
Senacor Technologies
Mainly programs in Java and
JavaScript
Likes to play board games and
point & click adventures

3. Blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah
Boring stuff you don‘t care about
Some personal stuff so I look more
like one of you

4. Nerd!

6. quantum computers

9. NERDS

19. 👍

20. 👎

21. 🤷

32. +

39. 50:50

48. &

50. Can I haz
brainzzz?

53. Disclaimer!

56. _(ツ)_/¯

67. + ≠

68. ≠

69. |0⟩
|1⟩

70. |0⟩
|1⟩

71. |0⟩
|ψ⟩
|1⟩

72. XZ
|0⟩
X
|1⟩
Z
Y
Hadamard

73. XZ
|0⟩
X
|1⟩
Z
Y
Hadamard
quantum
superposition

74. X
|0⟩
X
|1⟩
Z
Y

75. X
|0⟩
X
|1⟩
Z
Y
„Not“
around X axis

76. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
Conditional
NOT
(CNOT)
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

77. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
Conditional
NOT
(CNOT)
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

78. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
Conditional
NOT
(CNOT)
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

79. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

80. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

81. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

82. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
quantum entanglement

83. X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩
X
Y
Z
|0⟩
|1⟩

84. Hadamard: H
Controlled Not: CNOT

85. Pauli: X,Y, Z
Hadamard: H
Controlled Not: CNOT

86. Pauli: X,Y, Z
Hadamard: H
Controlled Not: CNOT
Identity: id

87. Pauli: X,Y, Z
Phase: S, S†, T, T†
Hadamard: H
Controlled Not: CNOT
Identity: id

88. Pauli: X,Y, Z
Phase: S, S†, T, T†
Hadamard: H
Controlled Not: CNOT
Identity: id
…
…
…
…

89. Use cases?

102. IBM
Quantum
Experience

112. 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

126. Qiskit Terra
&
Qiskit Aqua

135. Microsoft
Quantum
Development
Kit

139. +

140. + +

141. + +
+

144. or

145. use 4 qubits

146. use 4 qubits
give qubits helpful names

147. use 4 qubits
give qubits helpful names
initialize all qubits to |0⟩

148. use 4 qubits
give qubits helpful names
initialize all qubits to |0⟩
Clean up the workspace

149. use a quantum
simulator

150. use a quantum
simulator
run the experiment

151. use a quantum
simulator
run the experiment
did the cat survive?

153. Rigetti Forest

157. +

158. + +

159. + +
+

160. }

163. Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services

169. D-WAVE

171. By running our algorithm on the cluster provided by
the Data Infrastructure and Search Technology
Division of the Alibaba Group, we simulated quantum
supremacy circuits of size 6 × 6 × 68, 7 × 7 × 53,
8×8×44, 9×9×40, 10×10×35, 11×11×31, and
12×12×27.

172. By running our algorithm on the cluster provided by
the Data Infrastructure and Search Technology
Division of the Alibaba Group, we simulated quantum
supremacy circuits of size 6 × 6 × 68, 7 × 7 × 53,
8×8×44, 9×9×40, 10×10×35, 11×11×31, and
12×12×27.

173. By running our algorithm on the cluster provided by
the Data Infrastructure and Search Technology
Division of the Alibaba Group, we simulated quantum
supremacy circuits of size 6 × 6 × 68, 7 × 7 × 53,
8×8×44, 9×9×40, 10×10×35, 11×11×31, and
12×12×27. We did this using 131,072 processors

174. By running our algorithm on the cluster provided by
the Data Infrastructure and Search Technology
Division of the Alibaba Group, we simulated quantum
supremacy circuits of size 6 × 6 × 68, 7 × 7 × 53,
8×8×44, 9×9×40, 10×10×35, 11×11×31, and
12×12×27.
and 1 petabyte of memory.
We did this using 131,072 processors
Jianxin Chen, Fang Zhang, Cupjin Huang, Michael Newman, and Yaoyun Shi.
„Classical Simulation of Intermediate-Size Quantum Circuits“,
submitted May 3rd, 2018, revised May 7th, 2018, arXiv:1805.01450

175. 131,072 ⨉

176. 76.0mm ⨉ 56.5mm
76.0mm ⨉ 131,072
≅ 10km

177. 4 – 7 km/h
= 2 h
5 km/h ⨉ 10 km

179. 1 petabyte
1,000 terabytes
1,000,000 gigabytes
1015 bytes

185. https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/
qx/experience

186. https://qiskit.org/terra https://qiskit.org/aqua

188. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/
quantum/development-kit

189. https://www.rigetti.com/forest

190. https://www.rigetti.com/forest

192. https://www.rigetti.com/qcs

195. https://tinyurl.com/PythonHelloQuantum

198. Search for „Hello Quantum“
in the Apple App store
or the Google Play Store

200. https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/

201. #VoxxedBristol #VoxxedQuantum Alasdair.Collinson@senacor.com @blalasaadri
Go forth and explore,
fellow nerds!
(and others)

202. #VoxxedBristol #VoxxedQuantum Alasdair.Collinson@senacor.com @blalasaadri
Time for questions

203. #VoxxedBristol #VoxxedQuantum Alasdair.Collinson@senacor.com @blalasaadri
Thank you
for listening!

204. #VoxxedBristol #VoxxedQuantum Alasdair.Collinson@senacor.com @blalasaadri
* within our universe
No cats were
harmed in the
making of
this presentation*.

206. Media sources
• Font „Shlop“ used in the title slide created by Ray Laraie, Typodermic Fonts Inc. and published under the „Desktop License“ at http://typodermicfonts.com/shlop/
• Image of Niels Bohr - The American Institute of Physics credits the photo to AB Lagrelius & Westphal, which is the Swedish company used by the Nobel Foundation for most photos of its
book series Les Prix Nobel. (Niels Bohr's Nobel Prize biography, from 1922) [Public domain], available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANiels_Bohr.jpg
• Image of Karl Werner Heisenberg provided by the German Federal Archive under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild183-
R57262,_Werner_Heisenberg.jpg
• Image of a “circuit board brain” published by pixabay user GDJ under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/anatomie-biologie-gehirn-gedanken-1751201/; this image was
adapted for the physics brain image
• Image of an atom used as a texture for the physics brain published by pixabay user Gorkhs under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/atom-logo-wissenschaft-1472657/
• Original video of a spinning spiral galaxy published as “Differential rotation in a spiral galaxy” by Flickr user “äquinoktium“ under the CC BY 2.0 licence, availableat
https://www.flickr.com/photos/44080248@N03/4304580867/, cropped, shortened and slowed down by me
• Image of a cryostat containing an IBM Q comercial quantum processor taken by Andy Aaron, provided by IBM Research under the CC BY-ND 2.0 license, availableat
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ibm_research_zurich/34662903516/in/album-72157680875401173/
• Imabe of a 7 qubit chip; Credit: Kandala et al.; Nature. Courtesy of InternationalBusiness Machines Corporation. Unauthorized use not permitted. Retrieved from https://www-
03.ibm.com/press/us/en/photo/53138.wss
• Image of Albert Einstein provided by pixabay user OpenClipart-Vectors under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/albert-albert-einstein-einstein-1295413/and modified
by me
• Image of “Uncle Sam” provided by pixabay user Clker-Free-Vector-Images under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/onkel-sam-hut-sterne-304887/and modified by me
• Image of error correctionprovided by pixabay user OpenClipart-Vectors under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/pr%C3%BCfung-hausaufgaben-korrektur-154709/
• Image of a stack of books provided by pixabay user Gellinger under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/buch-lesen-literatur-b%C3%BCcher-alt-1957450/
• Image of a manikin provided by pixabay user WolfBlur under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/figur-mann-stehen-gesten-gestik-1707103/
• Image of computer memory provided by pixabay user PublicDomainPictures under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/brett-karte-chip-computer-daten-22098/
• Image of random access memory (RAM) provided by pixabay user PublicDomainPictures under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/chips-karte-chip-computer-daten-
20072/
• Image of person walking provided by pixabay user PIX1861 under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/gehen-laufen-sportschuhe-schuhe-681304/
• Image of lab equipmentprovided by pixabay user PublicDomainPictures under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/labor-forschung-chemie-test-217043/
• Image of atomic orbitals provided by pixabay user saylowe under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/orbitale-verkleben-atom-molek%C3%BCl-2146393/
• Image of HAL 9000 provided by pixabay user OpenClipart-Vectors under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/k%C3%BCnstliche-intelligenz-155161/
• Image of scattered numbers provided by pixabay user geralt under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/zahlen-ziffer-nummer-f%C3%BClle-z%C3%A4hlen-1036469/
• Image of the Bat Signal provided by pixabay user BilliTheCatunder the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/grafik-batman-bat-signal-comic-3318404/
• Image of the Nyhavn district of Copenhagen published by pixabay user skeeze under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/nyhavn-landkreis-wasser-reflexion-1119123/
• Tweet by Venkat Subramaniampublished on January 14th 2018 on Twitter, availableat https://twitter.com/venkat_s/status/952624222014074881
• Tweet about the Quantum Job Fair published on May 10th 2018 on Twitter, available at https://twitter.com/BristolQE/status/994527288510251008
• Tweet announcing QISKit ACQUA published on June 13th 2018 on Twitter, availableat https://twitter.com/qiskit/status/1006939405213368321
• Image of the Zuse Z3 in the ”Deutsches Museum München” provided by Venusianer at the Germanlanguage Wikipedia under the CC-BY-SA-3.0license, availableat
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AZ3_Deutsches_Museum.JPG
Image of Earth published by pixabay user qimono under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/welt-globus-erde-planeten-blau-1303628/
• Image of zeros and ones provided by pixabay user geralt under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/bin%C3%A4r-digitalisierung-null-eins-2007350/
• Image of transistors provided by pixabay user PublicDomainPictures under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/transistoren-transistor-218835/
• Image of a landscape provided by pixabay user Jaki0815 under the CC0, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/rotwandhaus-rotwand-alpen-mountains-975348/
• Image of Edwin Schrödinger provided by the Nobel foundation under public domain, via WikimediaCommons, availableat
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AErwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger_(1933).jpg
• Image of mathematicalsymbols published by pixabay user geralt under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/mathematik-zahlen-algebra-zeichen-1044091/
• Image of a computer, a tablet and a smartphone provided by pixabay user Maiconfz under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/computer-pc-tablette-telefon-1271863/
• Image of the Google Bristlecone quantum chip retrievedfrom https://research.googleblog.com/2018/03/a-preview-of-bristlecone-googles-new.html and property of Google Research.
All rights reserved.
• Image of the “Oops”-Signprovided by pixabay user cripi under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/fehler-404-panel-aufmerksamkeit-3060993/
• Image of a computer monitor with a code symbol provided by pixabay user Krzysztof-m under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/programmierung-internet-webseite-
3173456/
• Image of the Star Trek Enterprise NCC-1701 provided by pixabay user Janson_G under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/raumschiff-modell-freigestellt-2749360/
• Image of microchipcircuitryprovided by pixabay user mikadago under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/schaltung-mikrochip-nahaufnahme-389107/
• Image of a CPU provided by pixabay user blickpixel under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/pins-cpu-prozessor-makro-stift-564775/
• All images of 3d figures provided by pixabay user 3dman_eu under the CC0 license, available at https://pixabay.com/de/users/3dman_eu-1553824/
• Image of a pointing hand provided by pixabay user OpenClipart-Vectors under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/sie-zeigefinger-hinweis-finger-151415/
• Image of a set of vintage scales provided by pixabay user MamaClown under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/jahrgang-ma%C3%9Fstab-gleichgewicht-2862708/
• Image from a graduation ceremony provided by pixabay user McElspeth under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/graduation-cap-graduierung-kappe-3430714/
• Image of pounds sterling provided by pixabay user stux under the CC0 license, availableat https://pixabay.com/de/pfund-m%C3%BCnzen-w%C3%A4hrung-geldscheine-414418/

207. Licences used
• Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported (CC-BY-SA 3.0) available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
sa/3.0/legalcode
• Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
(CC BY 2.0) available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
/legalcode
• Creative Commons CC0 (CC0) available at
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/z
ero/1.0/legalcode
• Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0
Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nd/2.0/legalcode

208. Further sources
• Jeff John Roberts. „Breaking Bitcoin With a Quantum Computer“. 2018-01-06, Fortune.com.
http://fortune.com/2018/01/06/breaking-bitcoin-cybersaturday/
• Darrel Etherington. „Volkswagen and Google to bring quantum computing benefits to cars“. 2017-11-08, techcrunch.com.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/volkswagen-and-google-to-bring-quantum-computing-benefits-to-cars/
• B. P. Lanyon, J. D. Whitfield, G. G. Gillett, M. E. Goggin, M. P. Almeida, I. Kassal, J. D. Biamonte, M. Mohseni, B. J. Powell, M.
Barbieri, A. Aspuru-Guzik & A. G. White. „Towards quantum chemistry on a quantum computer“. 2010-11-10, Nature
Chemistry volume2, pages106–111. doi:10.1038/nchem.483 https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.483
• Lisa Zyga. „How quantum effects could improve artificial intelligence“. 2016-10-17, Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2016-10-
quantum-effects-artificial-intelligence.html
• Intel Newsroom, „2018 CES: Intel Advances Quantum and Neuromorphic Computing Research“, 2018-01-08, News Byte.
https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-advances-quantum-neuromorphic-computing-research/
• Alibaba Group, „Alibaba Cloud and CAS Launch One of the World’s Most Powerful Public Quantum Computing Services“, 2018-03-
01, https://www.alibabacloud.com/press-room/alibaba-cloud-and-cas-launch-one-of-the-worlds-most
• Mobile game „Hello Quantum“ available at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hello-quantum/id1378385003?ls=1&mt=8 and
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ibm.research.helloquantum. More information at
http://helloquantum.mybluemix.net/
• Python game „Hello Quantum“ available at
https://www.pythonanywhere.com/gists/a5d885816f7dc042a78df11ce6cf9652/main.py/ipython3/
• Alibaba Cloud Document Center. „ECS Bare Metal Instance and Super Computing Clusters“, last updated May 18th 2018,
https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/doc-detail/60576.htm?spm=a3c0i.11165040.991848.1.4a2163dafc4Zs3
• Alibaba Cloud Document Center. „Instance type families“, last updated May 24th 2018, https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/doc-
detail/25378.htm?spm=a2c63.p38356.a3.2.23c463026wtURX
• Wikiwand. „List of Intel Xeon Processors“, http://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_Intel_Xeon_microprocessors, retrieved June 1st
2018
• George Kuruvilla. „Volkswagen Boosts Battery Research Using Quantum Computing“, 2018-06-12, The Drive.
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/21463/volkswagen-boosts-battery-research-using-quantum-computing, retrieved June 22nd 2018
• James Weaver. „Composing Music with a Quantum Computer“, 2018-06-21, Cultured Ear,
https://culturedear.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/composing-music-with-a-quantum-computer/, retrieved June 22nd 2018
• Chad Rigetti. „Introducing Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services“, 2018-09-07, Medium.com, https://medium.com/rigetti/introducing-
rigetti-quantum-cloud-services-c6005729768c, retrieved October 3rd 2018
• A. V. Frolov. „Can a quantum computer be applied for numerical weather prediction?“ Russ. Meteorol. Hydrol. (2017) 42: 545.
https://doi.org/10.3103/S1068373917090011
• Amrita Jayakumar. „Can quantum computing change the world? This start-up is betting on it.“ 2015-05-04, WashingtonPost.com.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-it/can-quantum-computing-change-the-world-this-start-up-is-betting-on-
it/2015/05/03/e4681b48-ecfe-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html
• Lockheed Martin. „Quantum Computing“. https://www.lockheedmartin.ca/ca/what-we-do/emerging-technologies/quantum-
computing.html, retrieved October 3rd 2018
• NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division. „Quantum Computing“. https://www.nas.nasa.gov/projects/quantum.html, retrieved
October 3rd 2018
• Nicole Kobie. „The quantum clock is ticking on encryption – and your data is under threat“. 2016-10-04, Wired.co.uk.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/quantum-computers-quantum-security-encryption
• Julian Kelly. „A Preview of Bristlecone, Google‘s New Quantum Processor“. 2018-03-05, research.googleblog.com.
https://research.googleblog.com/2018/03/a-preview-of-bristlecone-googles-new.html
• Edwin Pednault, John A. Gunnels, Giacomo Nannicini, Lior Horesh, Thomas Magerlein, Edgar Solomonik, and Robert Wisnieff.
„Breaking the 49-Qubit Barrier in the Simulation of Quantum Circuits“, October 17th, 2017, arXiv:1710.05867
• Jianxin Chen, Fang Zhang, Cupjin Huang, Michael Newman, and Yaoyun Shi. „Classical Simulation of Intermediate-Size Quantum
Circuits“, submitted May 3rd, 2018, revised May 7th, 2018, arXiv:1805.01450
• Eva Bianconi, Allison Piovesan, Federica Facchin, Alina Beraudi, Raffaella Casadei, Flavia Frabetti, Lorenza Vitale, Maria Chiara
Pelleri, Simone Tassani, Francesco Piva, Soledad Perez-Amodio, Pierluigi Strippoli, and Silvia Canaider. „An estimation of the
number of cells in the human body.“, Ann Hum Biol. 2013 Nov-Dec; 40(6):463-71. https://doi.org/10.3109/03014460.2013.807878
Epub 2013 Jul 5.
• Intel Product Specifications. „Intel® Xeon® Gold 6150 Processor“, https://ark.intel.com/products/120490, retrieved June 1st 2018
• Intel Product Specifications. „Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8164 Processor“, https://ark.intel.com/products/120503, retrieved June 1st
2018
• QISKit website, https://qiskit.org/, retrieved June 17th 2018
• QISKit ACQUA website, https://qiskit.org/acqua, retrieved June 17th 2018
• D-Wave Systems Inc. „The D-Wave 2000Q System – The most advanced quantum computer in the world“,
https://www.dwavesys.com/d-wave-two-system, retrieved June 22nd 2018
• Frederic Lardinois. „Microsoft‘s Quantum Development Kit adds a chemical simulation library“,2018-09-24,Techchrunch.com,
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/24/microsofts-quantum-development-kit-adds-a-chemical-simulation-library/?guccounter=1,
retrieved October 23rd 2018