⏳ Reading Time: 7 minutesHave you ever wondered how a computer works? As difficult as it may be to imagine, almost every digital technology we use is ultimately built on a sequence of just two numbers: 1 and 0. Binary code is the language that underpins virtually every digital device, from the computer you’re reading this article on to a video game or an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model.
To put it simply (computer scientists, forgive us), computing relies on a basic grammar. Every 0 or 1 represents whether a switch inside the processor is off or on. By combining these sequences according to fixed logical rules, billions of times over, computers transform strings of zeros and ones into words, calculations and images. The brilliance of this system lies in its simplicity: reducing everything to just two possible states – on or off – has made computers easier to build, miniaturise, replicate and manufacture, enabling the digital revolution to spread across the world.
But that same simplicity is also its limitation. However fast a classical computer may be, it still evaluates one possibility at a time. When faced with extraordinarily complex problems, such as simulating a molecule or optimising a vast logistics network with countless possible combinations, even today’s most powerful supercomputers begin to struggle.
