In the last six months or so, we've seen IBM claim two 'critical advances' in the technology, while a Cambridge based company trumpeted its development of an operating system for a quantum computer. Meanwhile, Canadian company D-Wave Systems claimed in June that it had 'broken the 1000 qubit quantum computing barrier' with its 2X System. However, some say that isn't a quantum computer, with the argument revolving around whether or not the device performs a process called quantum annealing or simulates it. Nevertheless, D-Wave has the backing of some of the industry's leading investors.
Now, another industry leader has turned its attention to the quantum world. Intel is putting $50million into a collaboration with the QuTech Institute, itself a partnership between the Technical University of Delft and Dutch national research organisation TNO. It's a recognition that, to move their work forward, the researchers need access to high level engineering skills.
But don't expect a functional quantum computer to emerge from this particular collaboration in the near future. Mike Mayberry, managing director of Intel Labs, says it will be 'at least a dozen years' before that happens.
The quantum world is strange in that as soon as you try to look at something, conditions change. Will quantum computing researchers find that the more effort they put into the technology, the faster the goalposts move away from them?
