Quantum computers turn out to be far less useful than originally thought

Retro

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This is really disappointing. You know how the quantum computer revolution seems to be permanently a few decades away? Well, now that more is known about how they work and that peculiar quantum superposition of qubits that makes them, well, quantum, it turns out that the big, exponential advantages only happen with certain, very specialised types of problem, because trying it out on other types of problem just results in gibberish, or only a little output data which isn't very useful. This means that there won't be general purpose quantum PCs sitting on our desks or in smartphones, replacing the classical versions we have now, as they're only good at certain things. So, for example, we won't be getting next gen games with human-like AI in them as there's no quantum advantage to exploit there. Indeed, we already have that to a degree nowadays with classical computers and it's only gonna get better.

However, the certain things that they are good at are worth perservering with, so they're not going away and will only get better with time.

Mithuna Yoganathan, who has a PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, explains all this in simple language that we can all understand.

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