Have you heard of Quantum Computing?

You may have heard of Quantum Computing and the speed changes it will bring. In a nutshell, Quantum Physics are the ability of 2 photons to mirror each other. If the charge on 1 is changed, the other in the pair automatically changes. It doesn't matter if they are thousands of miles apart.

As you may know, computers rely on memory points, or bits, being set to either 1 or 0. Whether the most basic calculator or the most sophisticated super computer, these memory points are attached by wires. Increasing the speed of a computer often involves something as simple as shortening the length of these wires to cut down transmission time. In quantum computing, the length doesn't matter.

In addition to being either a 1 or a 0, through quantum physics, they can also be neither or both. Now we have 4 states, instead of the 2 we now use.

Quantum computing is set to change the world in many ways, some of which we can barely fathom. In the end only time will tell what quantum computing’s impact will be.

Quantum computing will likely have the biggest immediate impact on encryption, and anything that is encrypted—which is all data, pretty much. Today, if you have enough time, you will be able to decrypt anything using brute-force methods. These boil down to attacking the cipher over and over until you figure out the code.

Since quantum computers have many, many times the computing power of even the most advanced machines, this process is much faster. Where a regular supercomputer would need billions of years to crack most commercial ciphers, a quantum computer could do it in seconds.

Once quantum computers come online, this effectively means the end of privacy as we know it now, or at least secured with our current technologies. Your messaging history, your emails, any files you have in storage, will all be readable, as will any records of you kept by others, like insurance companies or even the government.

Some institutions have started quantum-proofing their encryption (a process that involves adding even more complicated math to already tricky computations). There are questions about how effective it will be. Even in the best case scenario, though, the way we store data and our assumptions about privacy are going to change.

Quantum Computing is a game changer, touching everything from AI to weather forecasting. As soon as the pricing is reasonable, I will definitely be buying one for my own use.