Essay by Eric Worrall
According to McKinsey and Company, the Quantum Computing model can accelerate the discovery of disruptive technologies to address the climate crisis. But is this an admission of how far we need to go?
The role of quantum computing and AI in reversing climate change
Via Velvet-Belle Templeman
June 20, 2022 4:44 pmAs the world grapples with the existential crisis that is climate change, technologies including quantum computing and AI can play an important role in reversing the damage.
According to a McKinsey and Company recent reportas businesses prepare for quantum advantagethey must value in quantum computing as an important tool to decarbonize and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
“Meeting the net zero emissions target that countries and a number of industries have committed to will not be possible without enormous advances in climate technology that cannot be achieved today. Even today’s most powerful supercomputers cannot solve some of these problems. Quantum computers could be a game changer in those areas,” the report said.
The authors have attested that quantum computers can be utilized to develop climate technologies that could contribute to an additional 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide reduction by 2035.
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Reporting by McKinsey and Company is available here.
I like the frankness of the assessment that current renewable technologies are not yet ready. For example;
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The improved energy density of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries enables applications in electric vehicles and affordable energy storage. Over the past ten years, however, innovation has stagnated — battery power density improved by 50% between 2011-2016, but only 25% between 2016-2020, and is expected to improve only 17% improvement in the period 2020-2025.
Recent research3 have shown that quantum computers will be able to simulate the chemistry of batteries in ways that are not currently achievable. Quantum computing can enable breakthroughs by providing a better understanding of electrolyte complex formation, by helping to find substitutes for cathode/anode with similar properties, and/or by remove the battery separator.
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Read more: McKinsey and the Company Report on Quantum Computing
The promise of quantum computing is, in principle, that it can perform every possible calculation concurrently, and then shrink back to the exact solution.
Imagine you are breaking spy code. You know the key has 20 characters, but unless you have a math cheat formula you will have quite a bit of trouble trying every possible combination of those characters until you start getting data valid from your decoder. Assuming the key contains only uppercase letters and numbers, that is (26 + 10)20 = 1.3 x 10thirty first viable keys – some keys are not testable.
Quantum computing attempts to shorten this impossibility by exploiting the universe’s real-world solver to solve abstract problems, by simultaneously testing every possible solution in a single step. .
The effect that scientists are hoping to exploit is that, Quantum processes in some ways behave as if every possible interaction between particles is occurring simultaneously, then, even unconventionally, different interactions can interact with each other to produce the end result.
The most famous example of this is double slit testin which particles are fired through two adjacent vertical slits, to create an interference pattern on a detector behind the slits.
The quantum oddity emerges when, even when scientists shoot particles one by one through the double slit, the individual particles behave as if they were passing through both slits simultaneously. Even stranger, both particle paths can interact to produce a final pattern on the detector board.
Where this gets interesting is that some of the paths are aborted. The model produced by the double slit experiment has empty regions where the interaction between the paths can cancel out the possibility of particles reaching those points on the detector.
Quantum computer scientists hope to exploit this uncanny parallelism, the ability of all possible quantum interactions to contribute to the final computation and in some cases cancel each other out. each other, so that when every path can be tested simultaneously by their quantum computer, only the exact solution, the one they are looking for, exists after the interaction. They want all paths that are not solutions that cancel each other out, leaving a bright spot on their detector, the solution they want.
Note that this is a simple explanation, today Quantum computer tend to use exotic quantum processes and interactions rather than particles passing through double slits.
But for all the advancements, the suggestion that this fascinating quantum pinball game is in its infancy is an understatement. Quantum computing elements, or Qubits, unstable and sensitive to outside interference. Instability and sensitivity to interference from outside influences, such as cosmic rays penetrating computer hardware, are serious obstacles to upgrading Quantum Computing capabilities. I strongly doubt McKinsey’s claim that any sensible investment can yield meaningful advances in quantum computing over the next few decades, and twice as skeptical that any What quantum math over the next few decades will dramatically change the questionable trajectory of our green energy revolution.
Update (EW): Added schematic of dual slot test.
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