A Different
Kind of
Machine

A Fundamentally Different Machine

Classical computers, from the laptop you use to the largest supercomputer on Earth, process information as bits. A bit is always either a 0 or a 1. Every calculation, every image, every message is ultimately a sequence of billions of these binary digits being processed at high speed.

Quantum computers use a fundamentally different unit of information called a qubit. Thanks to the principles of quantum mechanics, a qubit can exist as 0, 1, or any combination of both states simultaneously. This property, called superposition, means that as you add more qubits, a quantum computer's processing power grows exponentially rather than linearly.

A system of just 300 qubits in superposition can represent more states simultaneously than there are atoms in the observable universe. This is the source of quantum computing's extraordinary potential for certain types of problems that classical machines simply cannot solve in any reasonable timeframe.