It may not look like much, but getting a quantum computer to figure out the prime factorization of a composite number (any number that is not a prime number) is a neat trick. The ramifications include areas of cybersecurity and cryptography.
Right now, the problem of data encryption is too big for computers to solve (in a reasonable amount of time). It simply takes too long for powerful computers to decode transmissions, because computers haven’t figured out how to reduce a really big number to its prime factors.
For example, for our current encryption algorithms to decode a 600-digit number would take more time than there is since the universe began. That’s just unacceptable when you’re trying to pay for online merchandise using your credit card. When you give your credit card number to a computer, you’re relying on the fact that it would take bad people’s computers a really long time to determine the prime factors of large numbers. That’s what keeps your data out of evil hands.
But researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have developed solid-state technology that could cut that time down to tens of minutes. Yes, it was only with the number 15, but they continue to develop the technology.
“Fifteen is a small number, but what’s important is we’ve shown that we can run a version of Peter Shor’s prime factoring algorithm on a solid-state quantum processor. This is really exciting and has never been done before,” said Erik Lucero, the paper’s lead author. Now a postdoctoral researcher in experimental quantum computing at IBM, Lucero was a doctoral student in physics at UCSB when the research was conducted and the paper was written.
“What is important is that the concepts used in factoring this small number remain the same when factoring much larger numbers,” said Andrew Cleland, a professor of physics at UCSB and a collaborator on the experiment. “We just need to scale up the size of this processor to something much larger. This won’t be easy, but the path forward is clear.”
And once computers can beat the clock on this type of encryption, something’s already waiting in the wings as the next gold standard in cybersecurity. This new technology holds the additional promise of not only encrypting your data, but also of you (or your browser) being able to detect when someone is even eavesdropping on your line. Interesting stuff from the world of physics and mathematics!