Quantum-computer engineers should design memories like our own, storing information as patterns rather than putting each item in its own labelled box, as in conventional computers, says Carlo Trugenberger of InfoCodex in Geneva, Switzerland.
Quantum memories, Trugenberger suggests, could be associative while accessing the full storage potential of the collection of memory elements. He shows that, even if the input to such a device is noisy or incomplete, the most probable output is the one that most closely resembles (“overlaps”) the input.