| Let's devote a little more thought to how qubits can be used to create ultra-fast computers. We explained earlier how qubits combine two states, 1 and 0, and due to this overlap, when two qubits combine in what is known as a state of "quantum entanglement," they come to possess four states simultaneously: 00, 01, 10, and 11. Similarly, when n qubits become entangled, they possess 2n states. As such, a quantum computer can process what would for a digital computer be 2n pieces of data with just n qubits. This is why a quantum computer could process data at ultrahigh speeds. Actually, bringing optical computers into being depends now on the development of algorithms for enabling qubit calculations and extracting the outcome of those calculations. However, optical computers may not be suited to general-purpose calculations, but would instead probably be employed for specific purposes such as factorization.
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