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Imagine a machine that can do the seemingly impossible,

a computer that can perform calculations that no other computer can perform,

a computer that can solve problems we used to think were just unsolvable,

a computer that seems to operate outside the normal bounds of time and space.

They're building computers like that, right now, in tech companies and research labs around the

world. They're called quantum computers, and the people building them say they're going to change

the world. I'm John Thornhill. And I'm Madamita Murgea, we're both journalists at the

financial times. And for years, through our reporting, we've been hearing that quantum computers,

computers that operate in the realm of quantum physics are coming. And when they finally arrive,

they're going to be revolutionary. They're going to redefine what's possible with a computer,

and they're going to upend whole industries, everything from finance to pharmaceuticals with their

awesome power. We want to find out if that's true. If quantum computers really do represent a

computing revolution, and what that might mean for the world. So that's what we're going to try and

do over the next six episodes of this series. But quantum computing is complicated, so we want to

start with a simple example of a quantum computer's potential power. An example where a quantum

computer could do things that other computers can't do. And the best example is all to do with

cracking passwords. There's almost always someone who's got a password of password somewhere,

or really common is what I call swipe to unlock, which is 12345678. There's lots of passwords

that are usually like that. This is Mark Carney. He's a cybersecurity researcher at a major bank.

But before that, he worked as a professional hacker, testing the security of IT systems

by trying to break into them. And for him, cracking a password is usually pretty straightforward.

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