A year ago French president Emmanuel Macron announced plans to provide a framework for his nation's industrial and research forces to make the country a key player in the development of quantum technology. The "Quantum Plan" included an investment of €1.8 billion ($2 billion) over five years--a significant increase that placed France third after the United States and China. That included nearly €800 million for computers alone. The sector has already experienced significant growth, with patent filings doubling between 2018 and 2020, according to data and analytics company GlobalData. It is believed that the technology could potentially revolutionize areas of defense such as artificial intelligence (AI), enabling autonomous vehicles and improved targeting for precision weapons systems.

I recall the advent of the ILLIAC computer, ARPANET (that grew into the internet), the personal computer, the mobile phone, the smartphone, and other advancements in technology that have had such a huge impact on our society. Yet these are mere drops in the ocean compared to the impact we will see from the advent of quantum computing. Earlier this year, Google's 53-qubit computer reached computing supremacy, and from now on the world will never be the same. Google's quantum computer was reportedly able to solve a calculation -- proving the randomness of numbers produced by a random number generator -- in 3 minutes and 20 seconds that would take the world's fastest traditional supercomputer, Summit, around 10,000 years. This effectively means that the calculation cannot be performed by a traditional computer, making Google the first to demonstrate quantum supremacy.

All kinds of things are hooked up to the Internet these days, but Jerry Chow's computer stands out. Chilled by liquid helium, his superconducting processor uses quantum physics to circumvent rules of everyday reality that limit the power of conventional computers. Chow manages IBM's quantum computing group at the company's Thomas J. Watson research center in Yorktown Heights, New York. The team launched a website today with an interface that lets outside programmers and researchers test algorithms on the new chip. Chow says he wants to get them ready for the undetermined point in the future when this exotic kind of cloud computer is ready for practical use.