The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For computer scientists, solving problems is a bit like mountaineering. First they must choose a problem to solve—akin to identifying a ...

Right now, quantum computers are small and error-prone compared to where they’ll likely be in a few years. Even within those limitations, however, there have been regular claims that the hardware can ...

Many physicists and engineers have recently been trying to demonstrate the potential of quantum computers for tackling some problems that are particularly demanding and are difficult to solve for ...

It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than classical machines, but a new algorithm appears to do it for some critical optimization tasks. For ...

It remains an open question when a commercial quantum computer will emerge that can outperform classical (non-quantum) machines in speed and energy efficiency while solving real-world combinatorial ...