It was once just a theory,
but today quantum computing is a reality!
D-wave - the company responsible for inventing
the first commercial quantum computer
is helping Google, NASA and Lockheed Martin
to solve some of the world's most complex problems.
It works a hundred million times faster
than a conventional computer
at the coldest sustained temperature in the known universe
and scientists are only now learning
how to harness it's full potential.
How does this machine work and what kind of problems is it solving?
A quantum computer in general is a kind of computer
that uses the rules of quantum mechanics
to process information.
It is very different from classical computers
which use simple mathematics that we can do easily in our heads
except it does those incredibly quickly
and quantum mechanics and quantum computing
you're using very, very different rules
so things like superposition and quantum tunnelling
and entanglement become tools with which you can solve problems.
Initially we were focused on optimization problems
like logistics, scheduling problems.
What we're seeing  is kind of the sweet spot of the technology
or what it's doing really well
is contributing to machine learning
and in a new kind of way and bringing some new resources
to what's possible in the machine learning field.
So this thing with the little chip at the center which is smaller than your thumbnail
is the quantum processor,
and that goes into a package that is cooled in the fridge
to the coldest sustained temperature in the known universe.
Temperature is like noise,
and the colder we can get something - the lower that noise is,
and the less it will interfere with the quantum mechanics.
What is the temperature you cool it down to?
So we cool it down to about ten Millikelvin
which is around a 180  times colder than interstellar space.
You are considered to be the only company in the world
who is selling quantum computers.
Which organizations or which companies are using a computer today?
The University of Southern California
is using it for mostly research purposes
to train the next generation of scientists on quantum computing.
Lockheed Martin  is using it to make their software more reliable on F-35 airplanes.
We did some work with Google, facial recognition issues,
how to find a car in the scene
And so we did some early work with them on developing algorithms
which could train their computer
how to recognize a car.
The machine that they bought is actually located at NASA research headquarters
at Ames Air Force Base in California.
All the research that NASA, Google and Facebook
and all the people who are using machine learning
they are developing more and more sophisticated tools
to make sure that the accuracy of what they're actually seeing
improves as time goes on as the machine learns.
We have investments in several small companies
where we have given them access to our machine
to develop applications, drug design and financial technologies,
where we own part of their company
in exchange for free time on our machine.
They can't afford to buy $15 million machine,
but if they want to come to us, we can tell them:
"Hey, you know, we can make a deal!"
Which areas will quantum computing impact in the future, you think?
Whether it's a brain research or cancer research.
Understanding and being able to model
and learn from various ways you might design a drug
to adjust a particular cancer.
This is going to be probably the most important application
that you and I will benefit and notice.
There isn't really a corner of society
that won't have a huge impact from the application of machine learning.
In a longer-term basis
quantum computing will be the only way
to really get to the heart of the solution of those problems.
With this research: of a cancer research, body  research and genetic research...
How soon do you think it's going to happen?
Well, it is happening now.
I mean we've been working with some startup companies
on some machine learning applications for drug design.
There's probably things within the next three or four years
that will have had an impact in drug design that nobody will be talking about
but it will in fact happen.
So in 10 years from now you will probably being treated
with some quantum computing design drugs.
Steven Hawking recently said that
artificial intelligence could end mankind in a 1000 years.
What do you think about that?
My view is that humans are going to be
whether a 1000 years or not - I don't know,
but they'll certainly be around,
because in addition to machines getting smarter,
people are gonna get smarter too.
And if you look at all the research that they're doing
to increase brain capacity
and it may be that in 15 years from now
we will have a little chip in our brain
which gives us some quantum computing capability.
The sooner that useless tasks get automated,
I think, the faster humans will be able to address serious problems.
From the social and political point of view
the next 10 years is going to be really quite dramatic!
It means that governments are going to have to address that,
and they are gonna have to dramatically change the educational process.
So that people are taught from an early age
things they need to be taught, so when they graduate
they can find tasks that they can do
that are relevant to the society of the day.
How do you think it's going to affect our future?
Is it going to change our everyday life?
I guess the way to answer that question:
Did fire change our life? Did the wheel change our life?
Did the industrial revolution with steam engines change our life?
And it is just that the impact of quantum computing
will be bigger than any other,
and that matched with machine learning,
which is a software application of quantum computing
that will change our lives in ways
we can't even anticipate at this point.
What message would you send to the younger entrepreneurs?
Well, I guess the message is:
Study math and physics!
I think as you look at the world as it is today
the problems that need solving are rooted in physics and math,
and chemistry and biology.
But physics and math are the fundamental for everything.
So if I were a parent with young children,
I would be making sure that
by the time they graduate from high school
they had at least two or three years
of university math under their belt.
