Quantum computing may well be the future of most high-end data centres. This is because, as the demand to intelligently process a growing volume of online data grows, so the limits of silicon chip microprocessors are increasingly going to be reached. Sooner or later it will also become impossible to miniaturize traditional computing components further and hence to continue to achieve year-on-year increases in computer power. Today, Intel's latest microprocessors are based on an industrial process that can produce transistors only 22 nanometres wide. Further advancements in this technology are still possible. But at some point miniaturization will hit a physical limit as transistors only a few atoms in size will simply not be able to function.
Enter quantum computing -- an emerging science that quite literally goes beyond the laws of conventional physics. Over the next few decades, quantum computing could be the next-wave development to deliver computer power well beyond current comprehension. Today, all of us increasingly cast digital data shadows each time we use the Internet, or even when we pass a CCTV or other camera linked into a vision recognition system. At present there is simply no way to process all of the data that every person on the planet produces. But as quantum computers arrive, the opportunity to do this may well arrive.
