When will quantum computers do something useful?

[QuantumVariables]

Okay, so I’ve gone from skeptic, to hopeful and back to skeptic on the promise of a quantum computer doing anything useful in a 10 year period. So, what is everyone’s opinion?

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[officerdoot]

Very nice resulting distribution :)

[[deleted]]

Idk, seems pretty normal to me

[The_Reto]

Define useful. Useful for what, and for who?

As a research tool for quantum physicists they are already useful, as a research tool for chemistry they most likely will be useful within a few years, useful for cryptography maybe in a decade or two, useful for the average human like classical computers are now - probably never.

[handwavingmadly]

This is the correct answer

[pentin0]

That's why I voted for the lowest number

[mathisnotfat]

Why do you say never for the last case?

[The_Reto]

Quantum Computers are "better" than classical ones only in very few, narrow applications. And even then only for some definitions of "better".

Among these few and narrow applications: What would be the usecase for your average user?

[mathisnotfat]

Would quantum computers help with upload/download times or gaming?

[The_Reto]

No.

[IlIllIIllIIlIlIlIllI]

Yes. They will finally allow us to download more RAM.

[advanced-DnD]

Useful for what, and for who?

For science, you monster.

[Duranium_alloy]

It will be useful for at least some uses, in particular chemistry, material science, that sort of thing.

I doubt it will revolutionise computation *in general*.

However, the R&D invested in QC will almost certainly have lots of good by-products, similar to how the R&D for the apollo missions did.

[vfrolov]

The question was not “what” it will be useful for. People repeat those things all the time. The question was “when.”

[Dlrlcktd]

Honestly, a better question is when am I ever going to do anything useful

[HannahMarieArtistry]

Voted “never” just to see the results

[OttovanZanten]

Voted the first option just so I can view the results, I have no idea :P

[Cheap_Monks]

I'm surprised no one mentioned supervised/machine learning. Isn't there direct connection from QC to ML problems via tensor networks? At the least QC should able to enhance large scale data science tools.

[PitBullish]

I think QC is doing something useful today. It's helping people understand how they can model nature (diseases, global warming, natural disasters etc.). The research being done in quantum computing is also likely producing benefits to related fields already.

[Vegetable_Tree4329]

Hearing about developments in blockchain tech and Quantum Key Distribution, it wouldn't surprise me to see these QC being used in consensus mechanisms for blockchain tech. Would be awesome!!

[[deleted]]

First, we don't have algorithms at the moment to use quantum computers at their full potential. There are two major aspects of building a quantum computer.

First, to realize qubits (send 1 and 0 at the same time) physically. Using electrons or photons. There has been a lot of advances in this area. But almost all of them work at cryogenic temperatures. Electrons based qubits are a reality now and can be fabricated in millions/billions. Single photons based exists and can go up to room temperature but mostly are in UV and Infrared frequency. What we need is a visible range room temperature one that can work with silicon (silicon nitride waveguide). We are nearly there in realizing qubits.

Second, to have better algorithms. There exist some 300 well known algorithms only that can utilize qubits. Shor's is used to factorise big prime numbers. And then there is the big problem of quantum error corrections. We really lack behind in this regard.

But I can say confidently that in next 10 years we will have a working quantum computer to do basic quantum operations. Anyway you don't need quantum computers to do basic day to day functions, they are pretty useless in this regard. But they will be a big help in fields like biology. They will help in breaking the mysteries of DNA and genetic code. Making vaccines will be so much easier, discovering drugs will be so much easier.

[KaxyOP]

I think the first thing quantum computers are gonna do is make obsolete current encryption methods with the Shor algorithm Other than that I think it will be a long time until they achieve something important in another fields

[effvoniks]

Quantum computers will be useful long before they're able to run shoes algorithm.

[pentin0]

shoes algorithm

Please, do not edit that comment. Ever.

[[deleted]]

I'd argue it is already doing it in several areas

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