On October 9th, the Stevens campus was host to Dr. Darío Gil, IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research, who spoke on what the future of computing will look like. The lecture is the most recent event in the President’s Distinguished Lecture Series which was started by Steven’s President Nariman Farvadin in 2012. The lecture series in the past has brought some of the world’s most distinguished leaders in science and technology to campus to speak on the role of technology in different fields and its impact now in the 21st century.
Darío Gil certainly is one of these leaders as exhibited by his experiences and roles in the field of technology. Gil is responsible for IBM Research and heads the technical community of IBM, but his influence also extends outside of IBM. He is also the chair of the National Science Board that oversees the National Science Foundation, and he co-chairs both the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and the executive board of the International Science Reserve. He has served on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Gil received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Stevens and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
During the presentation, Gil touched mainly on three key pieces – bits, neural networks, and qubits – and followed a pattern of noting where the concept for each started and what is in store regarding it in the future. He commented first that this is the “most exciting time in computing since the 1940s” when the transistor was invented. This transitioned into talking about the first key piece, bits, where Gil mentioned the original concept of them could be attributed to Gottfried Leibniz who, in the 1600s, created the binary system. Transistors are used as vessels for encoding bits. Since their creation, the development of transistors has been exponential, and, at the current rate, there will be computer chips the size of a fingernail with 1 trillion transistors.
Gil continued the lecture by discussing progress with neural networks. It was first noted that Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the father of neuroscience, would pave the way for further development with biological neural networks and, in the 1940s, artificial neural networks. The ultimate goal would be to develop large-scale artificial neural networks for public use. Gil presented a challenge with this, being that more work needs to be put into reducing energy consumption of these networks in order for this to be possible. He made clear as well his belief in making AI as open and diverse as possible and mentioned the AI Alliance, a collaborative network of companies, startups, universities, research institutions, government organizations, and non-profit foundations, that are working to make this possible.
Gil then moved into the final piece, qubits, which make quantum computing possible. A qubit, or quantum bit, is similar to a traditional bit but is able to store and process more information by being able to take on an infinite number of values. Using the entanglement of qubits, a quantum computer can manipulate multiple qubits in a single operation. The impact of this can be seen when comparing the time it takes a quantum computer vs. a classical computer to solve specific problems. Gil used an example with factoring 2048 bit integers where the quantum computing cost is around 8 hours while the classical computing cost is about 4.7 billion CPU years. However, he noted that there are instances where the classical cost of computing would be less than quantum computing when simpler operations are being performed.
The lecture concluded with a presentation of what IBM is working on with computing. In May 2016, IBM announced the release of the first programmable quantum computer in the cloud made available to members of the public called the IBM Quantum Experience. Then, in January 2019, the IBM Quantum System One was introduced as the world’s first integrated quantum computing system designed for commercial use. Gil then touched on what is next in development at IBM. The company is working on quantum-centric supercomputers which will involve large amounts of classic and quantum processors working together in one unified system. Recently, IBM announced the IBM Quantum System Two which is another step towards this goal as it further advances the technology of its predecessor.
The impact in the end could be staggering. Solutions once out of reach may not be much longer. Gil showed that the benefit of quantum computing could vary greatly including helping develop better energy efficient fertilizer, new battery technology, lighter and stronger alloys for planes, better medicine, and more. In the end, Gil left the audience with one final statement. He concluded by asserting that technology in the end is a tool and stated, “We haven’t run out of problems in the world, and we could use some help.”
