Quantastica — providing you the programming tools for quantum computing
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In recent weeks there has been a clash of titans. Google and IBM have both for many years been in a race to achieve quantum supremacy — to which Google has now claimed to have reached. And quantum computing has interested many, such as Petar Korponaić, the CEO and Founder of one of Icebreaker.vc’s latest investments, Quantastica.
Petar became familiarised with the subject of quantum computing five years ago after stumbling upon it haphazardly.
“Five years ago I read about quantum computers somewhere on the internet, and I was curious about what it was all about; “what is a quantum computer?” I thought. So I started learning and I was excited about this new technology. It was very interesting and very challenging. So I started learning, and not only learning, I started coding. So I made a quantum computer simulator, and in the beginning, it was written in JavaScript.”
Petar’s interests in programming can be traced back to his childhood; starting 31 years ago. With this amount of experience, it is easily understandable that someone might start to think about the next steps. And the next step for Petar was quantum computing — a new wave of computing unlike anything we’ve ever seen before (for an explanation on how quantum computers work, check out this article by Wired). Petar, and many others like him, believe that these quantum computers' computing powers will mold the future.
“Every field of science today is limited with computing power. So in order to move forward, we need something better than classical digital computers to make new materials, drugs for deadly diseases and more secure communications. We simply have encountered a barrier; a wall in front of us; which is computing power.
The technology — as it stands today — is still experimental. Google’s recent claims to quantum supremacy have raised questions on when we will see a substantial increase in computing power. Information security assumes that computers are limited in computing power, but quantum computers break these limits. Simulations being run by classical computers, like the ones Google is using, are paving how we will understand computers in the future.
Quantastica has developed “Quantum Programming Studio”, a visual development environment for quantum computing that outputs code for multiple brands of quantum computers. Petar and his team have also developed two quantum circuit simulators: one open-source and another named “Qubit Toaster” which he claims is the fastest simulator in the world. Along with this open-source simulator, Petar is building an open-source community, code-base, and collaboration platform akin to GitHub, which will have value as the technology spreads and the workforce is needed.
Rigetti Computing, one of the first companies who produced functional quantum computers from Berkeley, California, USA, recognized Quantum Programming Studio as an important addition to their QCS (Quantum Cloud Services), and Quantastica became a member of QCS Developer Partnership program.
“Before I had a company or startup, I was doing this for fun. But, I quickly realized this is going to be more than a hobby, and I opened a company online in Estonia. Quickly after that, Rigetti Computing offered me to become a developer partner because I had some interesting additions for their products. Quantastica is now listed in Rigetti’s website in the community section as one of the partners and Quantum Programming Studio is Rigetti Developer Partner application.“
The market size for quantum computing has been estimated at $0.6bn in 2017 growing to $5bn by 2025. Quantum computing is poised for an immense impact on the current digital infrastructure. In addition, an increasing number of fields rely on machine learning and optimization. These, in turn, rely on computing power. Here, quantum computing can give exponential gains in speed and cost savings for a range of fields from logistical route planning and financial models to R&D on pharmaceuticals.
We cannot wait to see what the world of quantum computing has in store for the future, and we at Icebreaker.vc are thrilled to be backing Quantastica!
