Lets say in a programming contest you need to find a^b % MOD .

One of the naive methods is to run a loop from 1 to b , keep multiplying and mod

prod = 1;
for(i=1;i<=b;i++)
{
prod*=a;
prod%=MOD;
}

This is done in order O(b) as it requires multiplying a b times if b is as big as 10^6 or more it may give a Time Limit Excedded error

Lets look at it in an another way

Example You want to calculate 2^32 you can do divide and conquer

2^1    =  2
2^2    = (2^1)^2    = 4
2^4    = (2^2)^2     = 16
2^8    = (2^4)^2     = 256
2^16  = (2^8)^2     = 65536
2^32  = (2^16)^2   = 4294967296

Insted of 32 steps we found this in only 5 multiplication steps thus we can reduce a O(b) problem to an O( log(b) ) problem

Below is the code for Modular Integer exponentiaion in C++ for caluclating (a^p)%mod

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
long long int exp(long long int a, long long int p ,long long int mod)
{
long long int result = 1;
 long long int (p==0)
    return 1;
 long long int (p==1)
    return a;
while(p)
{
    if(p&1)
        result *= a;
    result%=mod;
    p >>=1;
    a*=a;
    a%=mod;
}
return result;
}
int main()
{
    long long int a,p,m;
    m=1;
    cout<<"Enter a , p and mod : ";
    cin>>a>>p>>m;
    cout<<exp(a,p,m)<<'\n';
    return 0;
}

This can be extended to matrix also, insted of integer multiplication call a matrix multiplication (useful in Graph problems) Below is a C++ code for matrix multiplication

#include<iostream>
#include<algorithm>
#include<cstdio>
#include<cstring>
#include<vector>
#include<map>
#define mod 1000000007
#define ull unsigned long long int
#define fl(i,n) for(i=0;i<n;i++)
#define pn printf('\n')
#define ps printf(' ')
using namespace std;
unsigned long long int** mmul(unsigned long long int** m,unsigned long long int** n,unsigned long long int N)
{
    unsigned long long int i,j,k,**result;
    result = new unsigned long long int* [N];
    fl(i,N)
    result[i]=new unsigned long long int[N];
    fl(i,N)
    fl(j,N)
    {
        result[i][j]=0;
        fl(k,N)
        result[i][j]+=m[i][k]*n[k][j];
    }
        return result;
}
unsigned long long int** mpow(unsigned long long int** matrix,unsigned long long int p,unsigned long long int n)
{
    unsigned long long int **m,i,j;
    m = new unsigned long long int* [n];
        fl(i,n)
            m[i]=new unsigned long long int[n];
        fl(i,n)
            fl(j,n)
            {
                if(i==j)
                    m[i][j]=1;
                else
                    m[i][j]=0;
            }
    if(p==0)
        return m;
    else if(p==1)
        return matrix;
    while(p)
    {
        if(p&1)
            m = mmul(m,matrix,n);
        p>>=1;
            matrix = mmul(matrix,matrix,n);
    }
    return m;
}
int main()
{
    unsigned long long int n,i,j,p;
    unsigned long long int** matrix;
    cout<<"Enter N  : ";
    cin>>n;
            matrix = new unsigned long long int* [n];
    fl(i,n)
    matrix[i]=new unsigned long long int[n];
    cout<<"Enter Elements :\n";
    fl(i,n)
    fl(j,n)
    cin>>matrix[i][j];
    cout<<"Enter Power : ";
    cin>>p;
    matrix=mpow(matrix,p,n);
    cout<<'\n';
    fl(i,n)
    {
        fl(j,n)
        cout<<matrix[i][j]<<' ';
        cout<<'\n';
    }
    return 0;
}