The five qubits in IBM's quantum computer. (credit: IBM)
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, IBM gave an unwary world its first publicly accessible quantum computer. You might be worried that you can tear up your passwords and throw away your encryption, for all is now lost. However, it's probably a bit early to call time on the world as we know it. You see, the whole computer is just five bits.
This might sound like some kind of publicity stunt: maybe it's IBM's way of clawing some attention back from D-Wave's quantum computing efforts. But a careful look shows that there is some serious science underlying the announcement.
The IBM system is, on a very superficial level, similar to D-Wave's. They both use superconducting quantum interference devices as qubits (quantum bits). But the similarity ends there. As IBM emphasizes, its quantum computer is a universal quantum computer, something that D-Wave's is not.
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