TECH FOCUS: QUANTUM COMPUTiNg The overall investment in these caption here in the optimization of road traffic. QUANTUM " MORE CE FICTION " It suddenly appears that the news about quantum computing is everywhere. The number of companies working on quantum computers is running into dozens. There are already several solutions available for testing on Amazon Cloud. UPDATE companies has reached $15B since 2010. This progress is hard to be ignored. We have come very far since I first heard Richard Feynman's ideas about quantum computing during my undergraduate studies in physics. At that time, they sounded more fictional than the science fiction books I was reading. I touched on it again during my time at General Dynamics in the early 2000s when my colleague was applying for research grants on quantum computing. At that time it was clear that there was much more to quantum computing than science fiction; however, I never expected the rapid progress since. So, how did we come to this point and where are we heading? The basic motivation behind quantum computing is two-fold. First, we are approaching the limit of how small classical integrated circuits can be manufactured. Further reduction in size leads towards the physics governed by quantum mechanics. Second, there is a class of problems which are not suitable for traditional integrated circuits. Phenomena where quantum mechanics dominates are very difficult for them. These are critical for the design of complex molecules and drugs. For this and other problems listed below, quantum computing really represents an ideal solution (Analytics Insight): * Quantum encryption * Simulation of quantum systems August 2022 9