What Is a Quantum Computer Good For? Absolutely Nothing – Yet

The Verge argues that researchers “have made genuine progress in quantum computing — it’s just been largely incremental and too esoteric to immediately capture the public’s imagination.”

And there are predictions that quantum computers will finally do something useful as soon as 2028:

The drama can overshadow the real progress in quantum computing…

Researchers have improved the qubits themselves, so they hold onto information longer. When they hold onto information longer, you can fit in more operations and do more complicated algorithms. Last November, Andrew Houck of Princeton University and his colleagues reported that they’d made a superconducting qubit that can hold onto information three times longer than the previous record holder… And in the last two years, researchers have made substantial strides in what’s known as quantum error correction… In addition, researchers have developed algorithms to correct errors while the quantum computer operates… Microsoft claimed, which experts dispute, that it made an object made of electrons known as a Majorana particle [which should make fewer errors and be easier to scale up]…

“We 100 percent stand behind our results. We stand by our roadmap,” Microsoft’s quantum lead, Chetan Nayak, responded in an interview with The Verge. In an email statement, he added that Microsoft’s “papers do show that we are creating and controlling Majorana [particles]… Microsoft’s supporting evidence is unconvincing [according to [Henry Legg, a physicist from the University of St. Andrews and a longtime Microsoft critic]Rnqyq. What it claimed as evidence of a Majorana particle, he says, could actually be due to quantum dots forming in its device. Quantum dots are electron-containing objects that are not useful for Microsoft’s quantum computer. It also bases its claim on data from a single device, says Legg. He wants to see Microsoft replicate the results in multiple chips. “If you repeatedly try and find Jesus in your toast, eventually you’ll find Jesus in your toast,” he says. “But that one piece of toast doesn’t mean you had some kind of epiphany.”

“While we appreciate the religious fervor, our data maintains the strength and consistency of our roadmap, as we have for the past several years across previous milestones. We look forward to delivering the world’s first quantum machine and sharing the energy of our achievements with the world,” wrote Nayak in response.

Past spurious work from Microsoft-affiliated researchers adds to the doubt. In 2021, the journal Nature retracted an article from Microsoft-affiliated researchers in which they’d claimed strong experimental evidence that they’d created a Majorana particle.

“Even hopeful experts have varying opinions about when a quantum computer will demonstrate something useful,” the article acknowledges.

But quantum computing lecturer Eleanor Crane of King’s College London predicts
researchers will have demonstrated a useful scientific simulation on a quantum computer by 2028.

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the article.