
Learn Quantum Computing with Python and IBM Quantum
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Earlier, I mentioned the term quantum utility. I figured I would take the time to describe in a bit more detail what that means and, more importantly, what it doesn’t mean. First and foremost, let’s start by defining another term, quantum advantage. Quantum advantage is a term that describes when a quantum computer can solve a practical use case in science or business that is intractable to classical systems.
One example of this could be Shor’s algorithm, which finds the prime factors of an integer. This is currently difficult for classical systems to solve due to the complexity of the task, which is why it is used to encrypt much of our digital content, such as passwords. In the example of Shor’s algorithm, where it is estimated to take millions of years to solve the problem using classical computers, some say it could take a few hours on a fault-tolerant system. Quantum advantage, at the time of writing, of course is...