The term “architecture” was first appropriated for computer systems in 1959 — used by IBM to describe the complex structure inside the black box and console panels of its Stretch computer, then the fastest in the world. Since then, the sector’s interest in design has ebbed and flowed. Apple’s black mirrors arguably flattened almost every area of design into their two-dimensional surfaces, from cameras and alarm clocks to diaries and telephones. Yet when we look at data centres, the defining building type of our age, we see big, boring boxes — warehouses for fridge-sized cabinets of chips.
But there is one place where architecture is a fitting word: quantum computers. These are incredible looking things. Golden chandeliers of astonishing complexity, unimaginable tangles of cables and wires linking stacks of polished brass discs suspended in cascades. Their seductive complexity gives a hint of their incomprehensible nature (as the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman said, “nobody understands quantum mechanics”). It also embodies more than a hint of retro sci-fi, of almost century-old movies such as Metropolis in which machines were designed to look like they did something almost impossible.
In a way, these do. Quantum computing operates in so-called Hilbert space — “an abstract mathematical vector” where an infinite number of quantum states can coexist. While standard computing stores data in binary “bits” of 0 or 1, quantum computers use “qubits”, which can be a 1 or a 0 — or both. Operating in multiple states means quantum computers can check multiple possible solutions at the same time. The idea of a multi-dimensional space is, of course, utterly incomprehensible to most of us. And the complexity of the quantum chandelier looks like a pretty good representation of this difficulty. Except that all that seductive-looking kit is really just refrigeration.
The computers need to operate at extreme cryogenic temperatures just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero of -273.15C, which is colder even than the ambient temperature in deep space. Because of the need for such cooling, the whole thing is usually encased in a closed box, meaning we’re back where we started, at boring racks of boxes. But one company has attempted to express something of this complexity in the visible design of its quantum computer. London-based Quantum Motion commissioned designer Felix Thorn to embody the quantum multiverse.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing