When John Preskill coined the phrase “quantum supremacy” in 2011, the idea of a quantum computer that could outperform its classical counterparts felt more like speculation than science. During the 25th Solvay Conference on Physics, Preskill, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, US, admitted that no-one even knew the magnitude of the challenge. “Is controlling large-scale quantum systems merely really, really hard,” he asked, “or is it ridiculously hard?”
Eight years on, quantum supremacy remains one of those technological watersheds that could be either just around the corner or 20 years in the future, depending on who you talk to. However, if claims in a recent Google report hold up (which they may not), the truth would seem to favour the optimists – much to the delight of a growing number of entrepreneurs. Across the world, small companies are springing up to sell software for a type of hardware that could be a long, long way from maturity. Their aim: to exploit today’s quantum machines to their fullest potential, and get a foot in the door while the market is still young. But is there really a market for quantum software now, when the computers that might run it are still at such an early stage of development? […]
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