Lateral computing
In a quantum computer, the fundamental unit of information (called a quantum bit or qubit), is not binary but rather more quaternary in nature. This qubit property arises as a direct consequence of its adherence to the laws of quantum mechanics, which differ radically from the laws of classical physics. A qubit can exist not only in a state corresponding to the logical state 0 or 1 as in a classical bit, but also in states corresponding to a blend or quantum superposition of these classical states. In other words, a qubit can exist as a zero, a one, or simultaneously as both 0 and 1, with a numerical coefficient representing the probability for each state. A quantum computer manipulates qubits by executing a series of quantum gates, each a unitary transformation acting on a single qubit or pair of qubits. In applying these gates in succession, a quantum computer can perform a complicated unitary transformation to a set of qubits in some initial state.
Qubit field theory
In many ordinary quantum field theories, constraining one observable to a fixed value results in the uncertainty of the other observable being infinite (c.f. uncertainty principle), and as a consequence there is potentially an infinite amount of information involved. In the situation of the standard position-momentum commutation (where the uncertainty principle is most commonly cited), this implies that a fixed, finite, volume of space has an infinite capacity to store information. However, Bekenstein's bound hints that the information storage capacity ought to be finite. Qubit field theory seeks to resolve this issue by removing the commutation restriction, allowing the capacity to store information to be finite; hence the name qubit, which derives from quantum-bit or quantised-bit.