It is an old observation that the phrase “quantum leap” referring to the gap between electron orbitals, is not in fact a reference to a big jump (the way it is usually used) but to the smallest possible increase in something. Having said that, Google’s announcement yesterday of their progress towards commercially viable quantum computing, really does seem like a quantum leap in both senses of the word. It looks (to this non-expert) as both a crucial small step and a giant leap (paging Neil Armstrong) demonstrating that their hardware scales without multiplying errors and promising an architecture that might solve real problems.
We are not there yet, but we might not be far from a world in which classical public key encryption is no longer a promise of security and databases can be searched almost instantly.
You can read about the breakthrough in Google’s announcement, but I am sure that there will be a more reader friendly version for us all soon. Let us know on the Forum if you find a good write up you think we might like!
