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[–] obvious_throwaway1 0 points 12 points (+12|-0) ago  (edited ago)

This has been the somewhat transparent threat to crypto to those of us who really follow computing hardware's progression over the years.

Quantum-based processing changes the current 1/0 (aka, "on/off") binary methodology for handling computational threads by adding a third phase called a Qubit, often referred to as a "qbit". To keep it simple, you now have 1 (on), 0 (off), and a qbit (both at the same time). Mathematically, this means the efficiency of a processor handling threads of code scales upwards, exponentially, as the qbit clock speed is increased. Currently, we have a roughly 50 qb processor with Google's Josephson Junction architecture, and even that takes extreme amounts of power and cooling to regulate to stability.

Today's Quantum processors are very much in their infancy. With that said, we are rapidly developing ways to harness the miniaturization, especially as we develop post-Silicon methods such as graphene-based transistors and t-gates. Tomorrow's Quantum processors will, with successful miniaturization, hardness the equivalent of the entire planets worth of processing power today with every single electronic device that has ever existed combined - yet it will fit onto roughly the size of the pin-head of a sewing needle.

It will be a leap in technological advancement on a scale of which not even modern science fiction has analogies to, and is frankly beyond the imagination of most. Some (myself among them, admittedly) speculate that the true singularity-based AI will be born from this Quantum-level computational authority, as it will essentially have the power to self-code and evolve the equivalent of millions of years of human ingenuity in the span of a fraction of a microsecond, or essentially leap beyond our ability to even comprehend it.

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[–] TheBuddha [S] 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

Nice response. That deserves votes, people. We can now but 7 qubit processors, as I recall. It's growing fast.

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[–] obvious_throwaway1 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, combine the basic block-chain cryptography of data encapsulation and transportation, then add Quantum-level computational advancements to the encryption itself, and suddenly you have something which transports EXTREMELY high amounts of secretly-encapsulated data every 10 minutes and uses a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the potential for the actual updated ledger of information.. to put it simply, imagine a train that spans from here to Pluto, but only a microscopic spec of dust sitting on the floor of the caboose has the updated ledger information being transported on it.

Think of what could be done with that remaining space, and you begin to understand why even today some data scientists are poking around on the Bitcoin blockchain suspecting it may contain the primordial stages of a rogue AI.

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[–] klondike1412 ago 

Currently, we have a roughly 50 qb processor with Google's Josephson Junction architecture, and even that takes extreme amounts of power and cooling to regulate to stability.

DWave is already at 2,000+ bits for abdiatic quantum annealing, which is not true general quantum computing but is dramatically faster at factoring problems (and any other optimization problem, due to how it uses annealing to find highly probable minima solutions). They use a relatively simple system of superconducting niobium rings at 15mK which can have current flow in both directions at once, and Johnson Junctions to act as buses selecting local quantum minimums. It's way more scalable than traditional general QC, and they claim to predict "Rose's Law" which is even faster than Moore's law (http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/10/roses-law-for-quantum-computers.html)).

Quantum Annealing is much, much more dangerous to cryptography I would say.