Besides the hardware, she says, Australia will be in a position to develop substantial expertise in the software in this new field.

International race

Simmons is confident that the centre's approach of using single phosphorus atoms on beds of silicon will win out in the international race for a working quantum computer. However, this field can be so difficult, even for scientists, that they are still arguing about whether a computer produced by Canadian company D-Wave is a true quantum computer as the company claims or simply a quirky classic computer. In August, the company announced the D-Wave 2X, which it claimed was 15 times faster than regular PCs, but experts promptly disputed the set-up and results of benchmark tests the company ran to prove its claims.

The backbone of any regular or classical computer is the bit, which is either on or off, zero or one. Qbits are based on a property of a single atomic particle. In the University of NSW approach, it is the "spin" of a single phosphorous atom embedded in silicon. This is not spin as we know it but a term denoting whether the atom's magnetic field is pointing up (spin up) or pointing down (spin down), corresponding to the on-off states of a regular bit. The D-Wave computer uses magnetic fields in tiny bits of super-cooled niobium metal.

Unlike a classic computer bit, the state of which is always either zero or one, quantum theory dictates that the operator cannot know what state the atomic-sized quantum bits will be in – zero or one – until it is measured. The act of measuring resolves it. Until it is measured, it is said to be both states, and all states in-between, at the same time. A qbit should then be equivalent to a lot of ordinary bits with the advantage over ordinary bits going up exponentially as qbits are strung together.

Michelle Simmons and Commonwealth Bank CIO David Whiteing at UNSW's quantum lab. Photo by Peter Braig (NO CAPTION INFORMATION PROVIDED) Peter Braig

One point of confusion for lay people in this area is that when the bits are measured, they resolve into either a zero or a one, making it the same as a classical bit, so where is the advantage?

Simmons tells The Australian Financial Review that the solution was a "probabilistic approach" – that is you ran the program many times and checked the bit many times to arrive at an answer as an average in-between the 0 and 1.


Major feat

Because they are based on measurements of single atoms, almost any outside disturbance – a single molecule of air – will wreck readings from the device, so just creating a single qbit can be a major science-engineering feat in its own right, let alone a string of them.

As Simmons and others in the field point out, for everyday applications, the classic computers now found everywhere in homes and offices will be good enough. Quantum computers come into their own in high-powered applications, such as code breaking, searching vast amounts of data for a critical pattern, or simulating quantum mechanical systems such as a single atom or molecule.

Whether Australia maintains a lead in this area or not comes down the delicate question of money. Simmons estimates that the Australian Research Council, the US government and the Commonwealth Bank have collectively invested about $100 million in the field over 15 years. The centre that she heads has an annual budget of $7 million with 15 professors and 150 staff.

But this effort, massive for Australia, pales beside that of the UK, where the government has injected £270 million ($590 million) and the Netherlands, which has injected €135 million ($215 million).

Whether Australia will maintain its lead and have a shot at kick-starting a significant new industry may depend on the attitude of our new, start-up friendly Prime Minister.