A bumpy road ahead
That section title is a give-away in some sense. There is sometimes skepticism and cynicism about the possibilities of quantum technologies, because there are major roadblocks that we need to clear. We can't talk about the rosy future with all of the cool applications that entails, without acknowledging the "if"s and the "but"s involved.
We had an interview with Sam McArdle dedicated to error correction, because this is a major blocker for quantum computers to go mainstream. The error correction occurs because quantum particles storing information interact with the external environment and therefore lose the information that they hold over time.
Unlike traditional computers, quantum computers rely on qubits. Information held in qubits cannot be copied into other qubits for fault tolerance. This is a limitation and a feature of quantum particles that makes this field both challenging and exciting. However, without finding ways to keep...