Computer scientists take on the quantum challenge

It will take special programming languages to properly exploit the potential of quantum computers. (Photo: ETH Zurich) - For a long time, the development of quantum computers was concerned with theoretical and hardware aspects. But as the focus shifts towards programming, software and security issues, the classical computer sciences are coming back into play. Physicists had long nurtured the ambition to build a quantum computer. In the early 1980s, one of the most famous among them, Richard Feynman (1918 -1988), questioned whether it would ever be possible to efficiently compute and simulate quantum physics phenomena using a conventional computer. He argued that digital computers couldn't compute fast enough to calculate and simulate the quantum effects that typically occur within atoms and molecules and between elementary particles - at least not within a reasonable period of time. Initially, he proposed building a quantum computer based not on digital coding but rather on a direct imitation of quantum systems.