QUANTUM computers are taking their first steps towards becoming a practical technology, according to experts who gathered late last month in Nashville, Tennessee.
The meeting, organised by the US Advanced Research Development Activity (ARDA), was closed to the public. But delegates interviewed by Â鶹´«Ã½ say the high point was the first demonstration of how quantum computers based on ion traps could be scaled up to large machines.
Quantum computers promise to solve mathematical problems so tough that today’s supercomputers could never crack them. By exploiting the peculiarities of the quantum world, which allow a particle to be in more…
