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The technology that will change the future, quantum computers: The amazing changes they will bring to our lives

These days, you often see the term 'quantum computer' in science articles or tech news. But many of you may be wondering, "What on earth is that?" or "What does it have to do with us?" Just a computer that calculates quickly? In fact, it's much more than that. Quantum computers, a technology that will change the future, are a completely new innovation in computational methods that can solve complex problems that are difficult to solve with existing computers in an instant.

In particular, quantum computers are expected to have a greater impact than we can imagine on our daily lives, industry, medicine, and the economy. Today, we will take a deep dive into the topic of “What changes will quantum computers actually bring to our lives?”

Decryption: A Game Changer in Internet Security

The first area threatened by the advent of quantum computers is Internet security. Most of the security systems we currently use, such as Internet banking, email, and blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, are based on a mathematical problem called **'factorization of large numbers'**. It is like a locksmith multiplying two very special and secret prime numbers to create a huge number 'lock'. It is so difficult for a conventional computer to find the original two prime numbers that can open this lock that even a hacker would have to do it for tens or even millions of years.

But quantum computers can solve this problem in an instant. How is that possible?

How could quantum computers crack banking passwords?

Quantum computers are ‘Shor's Algorithm‘It uses a magical technique called 'finding a specific book in a huge library'.

Traditional computer method: It's like going through every single book in a library, from beginning to end, row by row, book by book. If there are hundreds of millions of books, there's no telling when you'll find them.
Quantum computer method: Quantum computers, thanks to the property of 'superposition', have the effect of hundreds of millions of me simultaneously opening all the books in the library. And using the principle of 'quantum interference', they blur the books that are not the correct answer and **make only the correct book shine brightly**. So they 'find' the correct answer in an instant.

By this principle, quantum computers can instantly find the secret ingredients (two prime numbers) of the giant numeric lock that protects our internet banking passwords. This means that the security of cryptocurrency wallets can also be breached, and the risk of sensitive information being leaked is real.

New Shield: How Far Has Quantum-Resistant Cryptography (PQC) Come?

Because of this scary possibility, mathematicians and cryptographers around the world have been developing a 'shield of the future' for a long time. It is **'Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC)'**. PQC is a 'future cryptography' based on a new type of mathematical problem (lattice-based, code-based, etc.) that is extremely difficult to solve even for quantum computers.

Currently, PQC technology development is progressing as follows.

Standardization work: Under the leadership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a 'PQC Standardization Competition' involving experts from around the world was held for several years. In 2024, the final standard was finally announced. CRYSTALS-Kyber (for key exchange)and CRYSTALS-Dilithium (for digital signatures) The back has been adopted as the new standard cipher. (View the NIST PQC Standardization Project)
Gradual transition: Currently, large IT companies such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, and various financial institutions are conducting tests to gradually introduce this new PQC algorithm into their systems. It is like maintaining the existing road while building a new, more robust future highway next to it.

In conclusion, it is true that quantum computers will be a powerful 'window' in the future, but humanity is already preparing a more powerful 'shield' and upgrading its security system.

New Drug Development: The Key to Conquering Incurable Diseases and Extending Life

Did you know that it takes an average of 10 years and costs hundreds of billions to trillions of won to develop a new drug? The reason is that the **'molecular simulation'** process, which predicts how a new drug candidate will react with a specific protein in our body, is incredibly complex.

What is difficult about developing new drugs now?

Analyzing molecules with today's supercomputers is like looking at a hazy map on a foggy day to find your way to the top of a mountain. You can see the general shape or a few forks in the road, but you can't tell exactly where the road breaks, whether there are dangerous cliffs, or where there are shortcuts. That's why scientists have to go through thousands and tens of thousands of failures and experiments, pouring in a lot of time and money, before finally finding a single successful path.

How will quantum computers solve this problem?

But quantum computers give us 'perfect resolution 3D navigation' because they can simulate the exact position and movement of every atom, and how they interact with each other, at the atomic level, without error.

It's like holding a complete blueprint of a complex castle made of billions of LEGO blocks. You can simulate which block (molecule) is the key part that causes the disease, and which shape of other block (new drug) should be replaced to make the castle the strongest (more effective). You can find the most effective new drug candidate right away without having to go through tens of thousands of failures.

Conquering incurable diseases and the era of personalized new drugs

If this becomes a reality, it will revolutionize the medical world.

Conquering Alzheimer's Disease/Dementia: These diseases are caused when certain proteins misfold and become tangled in the brain. Quantum computers can help Simulating the process of why and how proteins misfold at the atomic levelSo, wrong

Quantum Computers and Drug Discovery – Nature Review Drug Discovery

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Logistics Optimization: Maximizing Efficiency from Transportation to Delivery

Do you know how difficult the problem of 'finding the fastest route' is? For example, if a delivery man has to visit 100 houses, in what order should he visit to complete all deliveries in the shortest time? If you calculate the number of cases, the number is greater than the number of atoms in the universe. This is a problem in computer science. 'Traveling Salesperson Problem'A very famous puzzle called (NP-Hard)Yes.

Let's compare this to a 'plate full of tangled spaghetti strands'. To find the shortest spaghetti strand, existing supercomputers take out one strand at a time and measure its length. If there are hundreds of millions of strands, it would probably take a lifetime to find it. Logistics route optimization is exactly like this 'spaghetti maze'.

How would a quantum computer solve a spaghetti maze?

A quantum computer, on the other hand, is like gently 'vibrating' this entire plate of spaghetti. When you vibrate, the long, complex strands stay in place with high energy, but The shortest and most stable strands sink to the lowest energy state and emerge. Quantum computers use this principle called 'quantum annealing' to consider all possibilities simultaneously and find the most efficient 'optimal solution' in an instant.

Amazing changes that logistics optimization can bring to our lives

If this technology becomes commercialized, our lives will become more efficient than we can imagine.

🚀 Innovation in courier and delivery: Imagine thousands of trucks optimizing the flow of goods across an entire city, minute by minute, not just by finding the shortest route from A to B, but by considering real-time traffic, weather, and delivery deadlines. This could dramatically reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions, and completely change the concept of “first-morning delivery” or “same-day delivery.”
✈️ Stabilization of air traffic: Airlines are no longer at the mercy of bad weather or unexpected cancellations. Quantum computers can instantly recalculate hundreds of aircraft and crew schedules, as well as tens of thousands of connecting passengers, and come up with new contingency plans to minimize disruption in minutes.
🚕 Smart Transportation System: Uber or self-driving taxis can predict all the demands of a city in real time, minimizing wasted movement and distributing passengers most efficiently. Already Companies like Volkswagenis conducting research using quantum computers to optimize traffic flow in megacities like Beijing.

Ultimately, the logistics innovation that quantum computers will bring will not simply be about making things a little faster, but will be a key technology that saves our time and resources and creates a more sustainable society.

Quantum Algorithms and Logistics Optimization – D-Wave Case Study

Artificial Intelligence: AI Takes a Step Up with Quantum Power

The artificial intelligence (AI) we use these days seems smart enough, but in fact, it faces enormous limitations. Current AI learning is like a student memorizing every word of every book in a huge library. The more books (the more data), the more time and energy it takes to graduate (complete learning). This is why hundreds of billions of won in electricity are spent training a single giant language model like GPT-4.

How will quantum AI make a ‘quantum jump’?

Quantum computers completely change this inefficient way of studying. 'Quantum superposition' and 'quantum entanglement'Thanks to this mysterious ability.

This is like giving the student millions of 'shadow clones'. These clones can read every book in the library at once, thanks to 'quantum superposition', and find patterns in all the content in an instant. They are even connected by an invisible bond called 'quantum entanglement', so that when one clone learns something new, all clones share that knowledge simultaneously. Innovation that allows you to study what used to take a week in just a few minutesThis is what happens.

In this way, the enormous parallel computing power of quantum computers will dramatically increase the learning and inference speed of AI, opening a new era called 'Quantum Machine Learning (QML)'.

How Quantum AI Will Change Our Future

As AI gains quantum power, it will go beyond just getting faster; it will enable things we never imagined possible.

The beginning of a truly 'hyper-personalized' era: YouTube and Netflix can go beyond 'predicting' what I'll like and 'create' and recommend new genres of music or movies that I didn't even know I'd like. In the financial market, they can analyze everyone's investment tendencies in real time and provide a perfectly personalized portfolio.
Autonomous driving gets smarter: Self-driving AI, which learns a large amount of unexpected situation data in an instant, will be able to make much safer and more human-like decisions than it does now. It will find the optimal route in any situation, such as a foggy road or a country road where animals suddenly appear.
The era where AI creates AI: Ultimately, quantum computers could usher in an era where “AI creates AI,” where AI designs and creates AI that is far superior to today’s AI and operates in new ways we could never have imagined.

Quantum computers are like adding a 'booster' to the powerful engine of artificial intelligence, which will bring about a whole new level of change in every area of our lives.

What is Quantum Machine Learning? – Google Quantum AI

More possibilities of AI + quantum computing

1. Improving the precision of natural language processing (NLP): The evolution of ‘oblivious AI’

Current AI services like ChatGPT and translators seem pretty smart, but sometimes they feel like 'uninformed new employees'. For example, when we say, "That restaurant's food is really fast," AI only sees the most common path of 'fast=speed' and directly interprets it as 'the food comes out quickly'. However, in fact, there may be an ambiguous joke or sarcastic meaning hidden in that statement, such as 'the food is spoiled (the legs are running)'. Existing AI has limitations in simultaneously understanding these various paths, that is, **complex context and hidden intention**.

But quantum NLP is like passing a sentence through a 'prism'. As the word 'fast' passes through the prism, it becomes 'fast', 'hurt', 'changes easily', etc. It unfolds simultaneously across the spectrum of all possible meanings. A quantum computer calculates all of these possible meanings at once, and takes into account the surrounding words and the context of the conversation to find the most likely true meaning. This creates a truly “smart” AI that can distinguish between jokes and serious remarks.

Once this technology is perfected, the following things will become possible:

Perfect literary translation: Rather than simply changing words, an AI at the level of a 'literary translator' may emerge that perfectly captures the rhythm of poetry, the hidden ambiguities of a novel, and even cultural nuances.
A truly conversational assistant: An AI assistant that can remember your mood, tone of voice, and previous conversations, and can even make jokes appropriate to the context, and can talk to you like a real friend or secretary, could be inside your smartphone.
Analysis of contracts and legal documents: By analyzing all possible interpretations of hidden toxic clauses or ambiguous expressions in complex legal documents or contracts at once, we can also alert you to legal risks that you may be missing.

Quantum Natural Language Processing (QNLP) will be a crucial key to AI evolving from simply ‘understanding speech’ to ‘understanding the underlying meaning’ like humans. If you are curious about the detailed technical background, QNLP related article from MIT Technology ReviewPlease refer to .

Quantum NLP – arXiv Paper: Quantum Natural Language Processing

2. Hyper-acceleration of reinforcement learning

The secret to AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol, the 9th Dan, and self-driving cars learning to drive on their own is 'Reinforcement Learning'This method is a training method that gives AI a carrot called a 'reward' and makes it learn the optimal behavior on its own.

But this process is very painful. Current reinforcement learning is like releasing a blindfolded rat into a very complex maze and leaving it alone until it finds the cheese (reward). The rat will hit walls tens of thousands of times, get frustrated by dead ends, and try all sorts of paths before finally learning one path to the cheese. This process consumes a huge amount of time and computing power.

But **Quantum Reinforcement Learning** is like giving this mouse tens of thousands of "ghost clones". These ghost mice explore all the forks in the maze "simultaneously." When a ghost hits a dead end, that path becomes less likely, and the paths explored by the ghosts that get closer to the cheese become clearer and clearer. Eventually, the "optimal path" to get to the cheese the fastest is magically revealed. **The "process" of trial and error almost disappears, leaving only the "result"**.

This ‘hyper-accelerated learning’ makes possible a future where:

AI Surgeon: Robots that perform delicate surgeries that would be impossible for human hands can be trained to respond immediately and optimally to tens of thousands of variables, such as unexpected bleeding or the patient's subtle reactions during surgery.
AI Quant Fund Manager: By taking into account decades of financial data, real-time news, and even people’s emotions as variables, we can create AI that learns and executes complex investment strategies that human traders cannot even imagine.
Smart City Operation AI: By simultaneously calculating traffic flow, power usage, and weather across an entire city, we can develop AI that distributes power most efficiently without wasting a single watt of energy.

Quantum reinforcement learning will not only make AI smarter, but will also be a powerful key to solving optimization problems in complex systems that humans have not been able to solve so far. If you want to know more, Related article from ForbesPlease refer to .

Quantum Reinforcement Learning Overview – Springer Link

Other Amazing Future Scenarios

It doesn’t end here! As quantum computers become more advanced, the following visions that are currently only seen in science fiction movies could become reality:

1. Climate Change Forecast: Predicting Summer Weather 50 Years Ago

Current climate forecasting is like trying to predict tomorrow's weather by placing 100 thermometers all over the planet. You know the general flow, but it's hard to know exactly when a shower will hit your neighborhood or where a typhoon's path will take you.

But quantum computers are like putting virtual sensors in billions of locations around the world and calculating all the interactions of the atmosphere, ocean currents, and carbon cycles simultaneously. This goes beyond simply predicting tomorrow's weather. 'Summer temperatures in Seoul on June 20, 2075, 50 years later'We aim for a level of precision that allows us to predict the climate crisis with much greater accuracy and develop long-term response strategies.

(Related information: Microsoft – Quantum for Climate Initiatives)

2. Financial Market Forecasting: Finding the Weakest Link in a Crisis

Current financial analysis AI (quant) is at the level of predicting, “It rained yesterday, so boots will sell well today.” However, quantum financial models include “people’s SNS emotions,” “new political news,” and “subtle changes in competitors’ supply chains.” It's like feeling every vibration of a giant spiderweb at the same time, feeling the impact of millions of variables on each other. Analyze.

This goes beyond simply predicting tomorrow's stock prices, and enables risk management at the level of finding the 'weakest link in a financial crisis that could occur 10 years from now.' This is why global financial companies such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are making huge investments in quantum computing.

(Related information: Goldman Sachs – The Potential of Quantum Computing)

3. Energy Optimization: Smart Grid Without Waste

The power grid is like a huge orchestra. If the wind suddenly stops (wind power) or the clouds block the sun (solar power), the performance can easily be ruined. Quantum computers become the 'perfect conductor' of this orchestra.

It can predict within a second when the wind will weaken and calculate in real time which batteries and which paths to take to store and extract surplus solar energy on the other side of the city to keep the entire power grid in perfect harmony without interruption. The disappearance of 'waste' of energyThis will be a key technology that will not only reduce electricity bills but also advance the era of eco-friendly energy without carbon emissions.

(Related information: IBM Research – Quantum for Sustainability)

In closing: The quantum revolution has already begun. Where do you stand?

At this moment, quantum computers still seem like huge, expensive machines, housed in cooling units weighing tens of tons. It may sound like a story from the distant future. But as we’ve seen today, the moment this technology is perfected, the world as we know it will change forever.

Our internet banking passwords will no longer be secure, the time it takes to develop a new drug for Alzheimer's will be reduced from 10 years to 1 year, all the logistics of a city will be optimized without wasting a single 1%, and today's AI will look like a child's.

The advent of quantum computers is not about a ‘faster calculator’. It is a change of the same magnitude as when humans first began to handle ‘fire’ or discovered ‘electricity’. Just as fire liberated humanity from cold and darkness, and electricity ushered in the industrial revolution and the information age, quantum computers will open the door to a new era we could never have imagined.

Even at this moment, Google, IBM, and governments around the world are pouring tens of trillions of dollars to seize this future. At the beginning of this great revolution, we can either remain as bystanders or become pioneers who understand the wave of change and seize the opportunity.

The reason why we need to learn about quantum computers now is not simply to study the technology of the distant future. It is to **learn the 'basic grammar' of the new world that will unfold before our eyes and in our children's generation**. I hope this article will be a solid guide for that first step.

*The shocking future of neuromorphic computing, a computer that mimics the human brain Go see