Australia has quietly become a force in tech's next $1 trillion market
Unlike artificial intelligence, which is mostly developed in America, Australia is well-positioned to be a leader in quantum computing.
Michael Biercuk is something of an anomaly. It’s not that he’s a Harvard-educated physicist, nor that he’s working in the burgeoning field of quantum computing. What makes Biercuk unusual is that he travelled to Australia from America to start a tech company.
That’s because Australia is actually a world leader in quantum computing research. And as Biercuk said several times during a Wednesday presentation at South by Southwest Sydney, it’s an opportunity Australia should not fumble.
“The most important thing I keep trying to advocate is that this is an area where Australia actually gets a seat at the big kid’s table,” Biercuk said. “All we need to do is just get over our fucking selves and realise we can actually do this.”
Quantum computing is a difficult concept to understand without knowledge of physics or computing. Instead of the bits normal computers process, quantum computers process “qubits” that can act as either 0s or 1s. This allows quantum computers to calculate advanced mathematical equations that would take standard computers dozens of years to solve.
