Quantum Computing  
and future applications 
 

Abstract  

Civilization has advanced when man has found efficient and better ways of doing what was
already being done and same goes for quantum computing. It is a global race to conceive and
create the ultimate computing machine. Can you think of a computer whose memory is larger
than its apparent physical size? Or a computer that can manipulate an exponential set of inputs
simultaneously? The answer to this question is also ​Quantum Computer​. Quantum computers
are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require
data to be encoded into binary digits, quantum computer uses quantum properties to represent
data. Development of quantum algorithms shows how promising the field of quantum
computers and the theoretical results showing exponentially faster work is significant. Quantum
Computing proposes better and faster solutions to many of the problems and present day
implementation of various technologies like Computer Networks, Cryptography, Machine
Learning, Data Parallelism and much more. But since it is in its early stages, there are some
problems with the hardware implementation and other stability problems which are open for
the world to solve and if a quantum computer is realised then we will have an ultimate
computing device with us having the power to solve problems we can’t even think of.

 
Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Introduction 

Present day computers are classical and a fact that we know that classical physics rules 
doesn’t work at sub atomic level they fail completely and to define that we have Quantum 
Mechanics. Similarly in modern day simulating the natural phenomenon on classical 
computers are not very accurate and sufficient so the need of Quantum Computers was 
felt. It was first proposed in the 1970s. Quantum Computers were first discussed by Paul 
Benioff with the aim of simulating a turing machine with Quantum Unitary Evolution. 
Classical Computers in theory will be able to simulate quantum systems but with 
exponential slowdown, they will be extremely inefficient.  

Quantum Computer’s technology is very different than that of a classical computer. For 
instance, a quantum computer uses quantum bits (qubits).A qubit can exist not only in the 
states corresponding to the logical values 0 or 1 as in the case of a classical bit, but also in a 
superposition state. A qubit is a bit of information that can be both zero and one 
simultaneously. Thus, a computer working on a qubit rather than a standard bit can make 
calculations using both values simultaneously. Multi-qubit systems have a power beyond 
anything possible with classical computers.Hence various organisations are racing to make 
quantum Computer a reality be it IBM, Google, Microsoft, D-wave and educational 
institutes. Quantum Computer, if becomes a reality will hold unimaginable power, power to 
solve even the most complex problems faced by human kind. 

Motivation 

The first and the foremost point that justifies the research of quantum computing is that 
nature is quantum mechanical and to simulate natural phenomenon we need Quantum 
Computer. Secondly, Scientists already think about a quantum computer, as a next 
generation of classical computers. Gershenfeld says that if making transistors smaller and 
smaller is continued with the same rate as in the past years, then by the year of 2020, the 
width of a wire in a computer chip will be no more than a size of a single atom. These are 
sizes for which rules of classical physics no longer apply. Computers designed on today's 
chip technology will not continue to get cheaper and better. Moore’s Law will not be 
applicable and we need a technology that can overcome this shortcoming,there are various 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 
proposed systems like DNA Computing, AI Hardware etc. and Quantum Computing is one 
such promising field because of its great power, quantum computer is an attractive next 
step in computer technology. Around 2030 computers might not have any transistors and 
chips. Theoretically it can run without energy consumption and billion times faster than 
today’s personal computers. 

Element of Quantum Computing 

Quantum Bits - Qubits 

The basic unit of information processing in a modern-day computer is the bit, which can 
assume one of two states that we label 0 and 1. In an analogous manner, this basic unit of 
information in quantum computing is called the qubit, which is short for quantum bit . 
While a qubit is going to look in some way similar to a bit. Like a bit, a qubit can also be in 
one of two states. In the case of a qubit, for reasons that for the moment will seem utterly 
obscure, we label these two states by ∣0⟩ and ∣1⟩. In quantum theory an object enclosed 
using the notation | ⟩ can be called a state, a vector, or a ket (Dirac Notation). So how is a 
qubit any different than an ordinary bit? While a bit in an ordinary computer can be in the 
state 0 or in the state 1, a qubit is more general. A qubit can exist in the state |0⟩ or state 
|1⟩ , but it can also exist in a superposition state where it is both 0 and 1 at the same time. 
This is a state that is a linear combination of the states |0⟩ and |1⟩. Linear combination 
means that we can represent a qubit as a sum of the states multiplied by some coefficients. 
These coefficients are of great importance in quantum computing as the whole quantum 
mechanics is based on probability and these coefficients tell us the probability of the states 
when measured. If we label this state |ψ⟩ , a superposition state is written as  

|ψ⟩ = α|0⟩ + β|1⟩  

|α|​2​ : Tells us the probability of finding |ψ in state |0 ⟩ 

|β|​2​ : Tells us the probability of finding |ψ in state |1 ⟩ 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Quantum Entanglement 

One of the most unusual and fascinating aspects of quantum mechanics is the fact that 
particles or systems can become entangled. If these systems are entangled, this means that 
the values of certain properties of system A are correlated with the values that those 
properties will assume for system B. When two quantum systems are created while 
conserving some property, their state vectors are correlated, or entangled. For example, 
when two photons are created, and their spin conserved, as it must, one photon has a 
spins of ‘1’ and ‘-1’. By measuring one of the state vectors of the photon, the state vector 
collapses into a knowable state. Instantaneously and automatically, the state vector of the 
other photon collapses into the other knowable state. There are no forces involved and no 
explanation of the mechanism. 

Quantum Gates 
Classical computational gates are Boolean logic gates that perform operations on bits 
stored in registers as 0 and 1 like AND, OR, XOR, NOT. In quantum computing these gates 
are represented by matrices. As we know qubits can be represented as matrices in the 
form of Hilbert Space of degree 2. So the operations can be represented and done like 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 
matrix operations. A quantum gate with n inputs and outputs can be represented by a 
matrix of degree 2​n​. Below are some famous gates , their notation and matrix 
representation. Each gate has its own significance. 

 
 
Controlled gates and Gate Decomposition 
We include a control bit C . If C = 0, then the gate does nothing, but if C = 1, then the gate 
performs some specified action. Controlled quantum (or controlled unitary) gates work in a 
similar fashion, using a control qubit to determine whether or not a specified unitary action 
is applied to a target qubit. A large part of working with quantum circuits is decomposing 
an arbitrary controlled unitary operation U into a series of single-qubit operations and 
controlled NOT gates. 
 
Hadamard Gates 
An important step in quantum algorithms is to use Hadamard gates to create 
superposition states. An interesting feature of the Hadamard gate is that two Hadamard 
gates in series act to reverse the operation and give back the original input. 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Hadamard Gate - In Series  

In Series Hadamard Gates Show a very interesting property of reversibility of operation that 
if we apply two Hadamard Gates in series then we will get the original input back. This 
property of Hadamard gate is very important in future applications 

Hadamard Gate - In Parallel 

.  

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

As we will see, the operation of two or more Hadamard gates in parallel plays an important 
role in quantum algorithms. When n Hadamard gates act in parallel on n qubits, this is 
called a Hadamard transform. A shorthand notation that is sometimes used is to write H ⊗n​
​ . 
 
Quantum Parallelism 

Hadamard Gate Plays a very important role in Quantum Parallelism. A one bit can store 
one of the digits ‘0’ and ‘1’. Likewise, a two bit memory can store one of the binary numbers 
‘00’, ‘01’, ‘10’ and ‘11’. But these memories can store only a single number at a time.In 
contrary, a quantum superposition state allows a qubit to store ‘0’ and ‘1’ simultaneously. 
Two qubits can store all the four binary numbers.The table below gives a much better view 
of the power of a qubit. 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Quantum Algorithms 

Some initial proposed algorithms did not have any practical application but they proposed 
an exponential speedup over classical computers. So researchers started working and 
developing various quantum algorithms like Shor’s algorithm, Grover’s algorithm. This is 
because the nature of quantum systems— captured in superposition and interference of 
qubits— often allows a quantum system to compute in a parallel way that is not possible 
even in principle, with a classical computer.  

Some Famous Quantum Algorithms:  

● Deutsch-Jozsa Algorithm 
● Shor’s Algorithm 
● Grover Search Algorithm 

Deutsch-Jozsa Algorithm 
Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm is one of the first quantum algorithms with nice speedup over its 
classical counterpart. Consider a function f that takes 0 or 1 as input and outputs either 0 
or 1. Our functions in mind are either balanced or constant. A function f is called balanced if 
it outputs 0 half the time and 1 the other half. It is a constant function if its output is a 
constant (1 or 0) regardless of input. 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Benefits of Quantum Computing 

● Quantum Computation 
● Quantum Cryptography 
● Teleportation 
● Quantum Machine Learning 
● Super Dense Coding 
● Improved Error Correction and Detection 

Some Major Applications are: 

Teleportation 
Quantum teleportation is a process by which quantum information (e.g. the exact state of 
an atom or photon) can be transmitted (exactly, in principle) from one location to another, 
with the help of classical communication and previously shared quantum entanglement 
between the sending and receiving location. Teleportation like we have seen in movies 
doesn’t work in the real world we have a different way but presently we have seen evidence 
of teleportation on a quantum level. Uncertainty principle states that duplicating will 
disturb or destroy the original objects so due to this theorists never really appreciated the 
reality of teleportation. 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Quantum Cryptography 
Quantum Cryptography or Quantum Encryption is an emerging technology in which two 
parties may simultaneously generate shared, secret cryptographic keys using the 
transmission of quantum states of light. This is known as Quantum Key Distribution or 
QKD. The security of these transmissions is based on the laws of quantum mechanics and 
theoretically secure pre and post transmission processing methods. In practice, quantum 
cryptography has been demonstrated in the laboratory by IBM and others. 

BB84 QKD 

This is one of the first proposed algorithm in the direction of quantum cryptography. It’s 
named after its discoverers (Bennett and Brassard) and the year when the protocol was 
first published. 

The Three Key principles of BB84. 

1. The no-cloning theorem-quantum states cannot be copied. 

2. Measurement leads to state collapse. 
3. Measurements are irreversible. 

Quantum Machine Learning 

In quantum machine learning, quantum algorithms are developed to solve typical problems 
of machine learning using the efficiency of quantum computing. This is usually done by 
adapting classical algorithms for a quantum computer. 

Quantum Speedup 

Quantum algorithms can in principal outperform the best known classical algorithms when 
solving certain problems. This is known as a quantum speedup. 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Quantum Computing Languages 

Even though no quantum computer has been built that hasn’t stopped the proliferation of 
papers on various aspects of the subject. Many such papers have been written defining 
language specifications. 
● QCL - (Bernhard Omer) C like syntax and very complete.  

● qGCL - (Paolo Zuliani and others) 

● Quantum C - (Stephen Blaha) Currently just a specification 

Microsoft, IBM and other companies are developing languages for quantum computing like 
Q#  
 
Various Hardware Implementation 
There are different proposed implementation of hardware of quantum computers many 
different companies are using many methods and try to achieve the best possible results. 
Some famous methods are: 

Ion Traps​ This method uses two electron orbits of an ion (charged atom) trapped within an 
electromagnetic field in a vacuum to form a qubit (ion trap method).   

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)​ NMR uses the spin of an atomic nucleus to represent 
a qubit. 

​Optical photon computer​ One method of this type uses the interaction between an atom 
and photon in a resonator, and another uses optical devices such as a beam splitter, 
mirror, etc. 

Challenges in Quantum Computing 

Quantum Computing is an emerging technology and as usual quantum computing faces a 

lot of issues like hardware architecture and stability issues as manipulating quantum states 
requires a lot of energy and surrounding management. Major issues are:  

Decoherence​ It is that quantum computation will spread outside the computational unit 
and will irreversibly dissipate useful information to the environment.  

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Error Correction​ Error correction is rather self explanatory, but what errors need 
correction?  The answer is primarily those errors that arise as a direct result of 
decoherence. 

Conclusion 

To conclude, we can state that quantum computation is not a distant dream because the 
last century witnessed a huge topsy-turvy regarding size of electronic circuits, from vacuum 
tubes to transistors, from transistors to wired logic to integrated circuits.  

Building a practical quantum computer is just a matter of time. Quantum computers easily 
solve applications that can’t be done with the help of today’s computers. This will be one of 
the biggest steps in science and will undoubtedly revolutionize the practical computing 
world. 

Bibliography 

David McMahon, Quantum Computing Explained (2017)  

Michael Nielsen, Isaac Chuang, “Quantum Computation and Quantum Information" , 

Cambridge University Press (2000). 

R. Feynman Simulating physics with computers 

An introduction to quantum machine learning,Maria Schuld , Ilya Sinayskiy and Francesco 

Petruccione (2014) 

https://www.research.ibm.com/ibm-q/ 

https://medium.com/@jonathan_hui/qc-quantum-algorithm-with-an-example-cf22c0b1ec3
1 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer 

http://howstuffworks.com/quantum-computer.htm 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography 

 
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Quantum Computing and future applications.  
 

Image Sources: Google Images 

 
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