Tags: Carly

From test tube computers to qubits in the cloudThere are some applications beyond breaking internet encryption that quantum computers will be good at. We know that quantum computers will be particularly simulating nature (chemistry, materials, complex physical systems). Additionally, there are optimization problems that are “classically hard but quantumly easy”, and identifying more is an active area of research.The first quantum computers that appeared in the 2000s were simply chemicals in a test tube, programmed with radiofrequency pulses (similar to an MRI scan).Since then, scientists. engineers and researchers have made qubits (quantum bits) out of many types of particles — single atoms, single ions, electrons, or photons (particles of light), and from the relationships between particles. Quantum computers based on all of these are being...