Quantum computing promises new technological possibilities. How close are they?

After fundamentally changing science more than a century ago, modern physics may be about to revolutionize the world of computers – with implications for everything from the speed of doing complex research to nations’ vulnerability to cyberattack.

Billions of dollars are pouring into quantum computing – a budding field that relies on the sometimes surprising behavior of subatomic particles to process information. This past week in Boston, Quantum.Tech World was held, with over 1,000 top executives and researchers from more than 40 countries gathering to transition the ideas from the lab to the commercial market.

Currently, the most advanced quantum computers use anywhere from hundreds of qubits to the low thousands. These machines are delicate and prone to faults. Still, with clever coding even faulty qubits can be optimized to create a high-performance system.

“We call that quantum error correction,” says Niklas Mueller, an assistant professor and researcher at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “That is currently the big frontier.”