The quest for the quantum “holy grail”

Harnessing the power of the quantum realm is paving the way for a new breed of computers with tremendous processing power. Today's computers encode, store and manipulate information using bits - zero or one. Quantum bits, or qubits, have the remarkable property of being in a "superposition" of zero and one. In other words, they can be in both simultaneously. This characteristic, and other quantum phenomena, offer a much richer environment for processing information and allows us to develop devices that will drastically outperform today's computing and communication technology.