Physicists in the United States on Wednesday notched up a lab success in the quest for quantum computers, whose stellar capacities have already earned them the nickname of "super-computers on steroids."
Atoms can be excited to a quantum condition using microwaves, an advance over larger and bulkier lasers, until now the only way to achieve this essential state, they said.
In theory, it means that quantum computers -- if they are commercially feasible -- could be as tiny as a small book, the team reported in Nature, the British science journal.
"It is conceivable a modest-sized quantum computer could eventually look like a smart phone combined with a laser pointer-like device," said Dietrich Leibfried of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
"Sophisticated machines might have an overall footprint comparable to a regular desktop PC."
Quantum computers the size of current desktop PCs instead of huge, complex laser installations is pretty much the breakthrough needed to make quantum supercomputers commercially viable. I'm looking forward to the point where these things become residentially available. You know, if we're not all killed in the apocalypse in the next couple years, that is.
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