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Future of CPU – Long term perspective

Well it turns out that CPUs future in a short term is… kind of less exciting. We might get more cores, more transistors, 3D stacking of chips (that’s another idea for next insight). But what about long term future? Well that’s certainly exciting.

Human knowledge is nowadays are giving diminishing returns. There are no longer major discoveries being made.

Every progress seems incremental rather than acute changes. That could be witnessed in CPU power, mobiles with just camera, screen etc improvement per year.

But we believe we are in the cusp of major changes. Somethings that might change humanity forever. One of them is quantum computing. With present silicon based technology, we are getting to a place where transistors cannot be shrunk down. The gigahertz war is done for. Even if we use material like graphene instead of silicon, we might still not go far. Quantum computers can change all this.

Zero or one? No thanks, Both zero and one please

Present transistors work in this way, the hardware opens and shuts gate signalling 0 or 1 (called bits). The whole CPU works in this binary fashion. But what if the single could be 0, 1 or both! This is probabilistic world of quantum physics and these bits are called qubits. This sort of computation can potentially increase our computation power exponentially. There is one more reason why computation can be fast, because Quantum algorithms are often probabilistic, in that they provide the correct solution only with a certain known probability. Unlike current systems which are accurate.

If we are able to substitute each bits in today’s CPU to qubits, we can have a super computer in our very own desktop. But then why we are not seeing Intel Core iQ CPUs? That’s because its not so easy.

Can it play Crysis? The difficult part

Current quantum computers require exotic material which cannot be easily used in regular atmosphere like our office. Super Conducting material are used to generate super slow CPUs that requires huge area and electricity to sustain. Also current software need to be modified in order to utilize quantum computers potential. Further, there is no standard in material, instruction set and software. Current technology is in harmony, everyone is using silicon to build CPUs, Instructions are defines including X86 and ARM. Software compilers and interpreters are fully set. However, Quantum CPUs are still at discovery stage, new materials, new fabrication methods are being identified. Its a long way before we can see QC in our desktop.

Who are developing QC? Where is my Ryzen 5 raise to power 5

Intel and IBM are locking horns with fastest quantum computers. Google is also into the fray of researching quantum CPU. We have achieved 50Qubits.

Whats in the future and why should i be excited?

Well quantum computers in large scale would entail simulation of the world to particle level. You might get a Matrix like illusion. This along with research in Fusion reactor might give us unlimited power and computation power. This might finally kick humanity to next level where there can be no illness, no death, no unsolved problems . As Nomura once said, Please be excited.

Abhishek

Abhishek

Abhishek is a Finance Professional and has worked in multiple MNCs. However, he is also an avid tech reader and tinkerer with over 20 years of experience. His passions include 3D animation and drawing Illustrations. His creations can be viewed at www.artstation.com/abhifx

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