The real world applications that may be discovered along the way are mind-boggling.

What is quantum computing and why should you care?

Elected officials gathered at the University of Waterloo Thursday to celebrate the federal government's $15 million investment in the university's Institute for Quantum Computing.

Although the money has been allocated since the release of federal budget last year, Kitchener-Waterloo MP Peter Braid and London MP Ed Holder took advantage of the opportunity to tout the government's investments in innovation in advance of an upcoming federal election later this year.

Still, the money is a welcome addition to the high-tech institute, currently racing other facilities around the world to be the first to develop a quantum computer.

CBC spoke with the Institute of Quantum Computing's executive director Raymond Laflamme, to find out exactly what is being done at the university, and what it could mean for daily life. This interview has be edited and condensed.

CBC: What is quantum computing?

RL: It is computing with the laws of quantum physics.That means using the science that describes the world of atoms and molecules to create high powered computing technology.

CBC: What are the practical applications of quantum computing?

RL: The first application is computing more efficiently and faster. It also leads to other types of technologies, like quantum cryptography—new ways of encrypting information and ensuring it is private, so people can’t eavesdrop. A third piece of the technology is sensors that are a lot more sensitive to things around us. Quantum sensors will be able to sense things that sensors today can’t, whether that is a sensor in your thermostat, in your car to regulate airflow or on airplanes to know what speed it is moving at.

CBC: What is the main goal for the Institute of Quantum Computing?

RL: The institute’s long-term goal is building this quantum computer. But on the way there we learn how to manipulate, control and direct atoms and molecules and make them do things we want them to do. Computing is one long-term application but on the way there we can think about new types of sensors which can sense things at the size of atoms and molecules, use it and feedback to certain applications that could be medical or exploration of natural resources.

CBC: What is the most common misconception about quantum computing?

RL: People think it’s going to happen 30 or 50 years from now, but it’s going to happen much faster than this. The quantum revolution is happening now. It’s not something of the future.

CBC: You’ve joked about building a quantum teleporter and a time machine. Is the science fiction of quantum computing become a reality now?

RL: The author Arthur C. Clarke said, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic,' and I would say that quantum science is of that type.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener ... -1.2928347

A companion article from a link at the original one:

Blackberry co-founders start $100M quantum tech fund

Blackberry co-founders Mike Laziridis and Doug Fregin have launched a $100 million dollar private fund to boost the development of Canada's fledgling quantum computing industry.

Quantum Valley Investments, based in Waterloo, Ont., "will provide financial and intellectual capital" for the development and "commercialization of breakthroughs" in quantum information science, said a news release announcing the new fund.

A statement from Laziridis and Fregin said they believe the fund will lead to the creation of new jobs and industries and help establish Waterloo as "Canada's Quantum Valley."

Quantum computing technology makes use of the strange laws of quantum physics that cause very small particles — those around the size of an atom or smaller — to behave very differently than those on the human scale. For example, while conventional computing relies on bits of data represented by either a "1" or a "0", quantum computing makes use of "qubits" that can encode information as both a "1" and a "0" at the same time due to a quantum property known as superposition. That means quantum computers with a given number of qubits can store exponentially more information than conventional computers with the same number of bits. They are also better at solving certain types of problems.

The technology is still in its infancy and very few quantum computing products are available commercially so far.

The new fund hopes to harness the existing developments and breakthroughs that have already been discovered over the past 12 years in Waterloo, when Laziridis started investing locally in quantum physics and technology research.

In 1999, he gave $100 million to help establish the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which also got matching funds from the private and public sector. The institute's nine research areas include particle physics, quantum fields and strings, quantum foundations and quantum information.

Laziridis has also donated over $100 million to the University of Waterloo for its Institute for Quantum Computing, established in 2002, and its Quantum Nano-Centre, which also houses the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, started in 2008.

Laziridis and Fregin said they believe that breakthroughs at the three institutes will "lead to transformative commercialization opportunities" in the Waterloo region the way discoveries at Bell Labs led to the rise of California's Silicon Valley.

The pair founded the smartphone technology company formerly known as Research in Motion in 1984. The company abandoned its original name in favour of BlackBerry, its well-known smartphone brand name, earlier this year.

Laziridis was the company's co-CEO up until last January, when both he and its other CEO, Jim Balsillie, resigned and were replaced by current CEO Thorsten Heins. The company had been losing its share of the smartphone market to competitors such as Apple and its share price has plunged.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener ... -1.1329286

The possibilities are endless and exciting ~ but I'm trying, and failing, to imagine minds that work like this ~

Sooz