In 1952, Remington Rand’s UNIVAC computer debuted on CBS to forecast the 1952 election as early results came in. By 8:30, the “electronic brain” was predicting a landslide, with Eisenhower taking 438 electoral votes to Stevenson’s 93. The CBS brass scoffed at the unlikely result, but by the end of the night UNIVAC proved to be uncannily accurate.
It was that night that the era of digital computing truly began and it was a big blow to IBM, the leader in punch card calculators at the time. It’s Research division, however, was already working on more advanced digital technology. In 1964, it launched its System 360 and dominated the industry for the next two decades.
Today, we’ve reached a similar inflection point. Moore’s law, the paradigm which has driven computing for half a century will come to a screeching halt in about five years. And much like back in the 1950’s, IBM has been working on a new quantum computer that may dominate the industry for decades to come. If that sounds unlikely, wait till you hear the ideas behind it.
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