By contrast, it took roughly 10 years from the invention of the transistor in 1947 to a 30,000 transistor computer (IBM 7070 in 1958) and a fully functional 100 transistor MOSFET chip in 1964.
Even vacuum tubes went from Triode invention in 1906 to Flip-Flop in 1918 to a computer in 1939 while discovering quantum mechanics at the same time.
Qubits are barely at 1000 in 2023 (invented at roughly 1988 but with a lot of groundwork beforehand) and they barely work. Progress on increasing that has been very slow.
Qubits are still a research problem and not an engineering problem.
Problem 2: Problems and algorithms don't map as easily as everybody claims
There's a lot of "Algorithm X is faster in Quantum than Classical."
A lot of those claims are of the form "If we can build quantum circuit P, D, and Z, we can map Algorithm X to a Quantum Computer." And a lot of those assumptions are, quite bluntly, bullshit. We can't build circuit P, D, or Z and make it work so it doesn't matter how well the theorists can map the algorithm.
This also all presupposes we don't have better classical algorithms. Whenever I talk to quantum computing folks they generally point out that the one thing we have a hope of mapping to quantum solidly, factoring, is an odd man out in the way it maps. A couple of them think that there's still some missing knowledge in classical algorithms around that.
Doubtful.
Problem 1: Qubits don't scale.
By contrast, it took roughly 10 years from the invention of the transistor in 1947 to a 30,000 transistor computer (IBM 7070 in 1958) and a fully functional 100 transistor MOSFET chip in 1964.
Even vacuum tubes went from Triode invention in 1906 to Flip-Flop in 1918 to a computer in 1939 while discovering quantum mechanics at the same time.
Qubits are barely at 1000 in 2023 (invented at roughly 1988 but with a lot of groundwork beforehand) and they barely work. Progress on increasing that has been very slow.
Qubits are still a research problem and not an engineering problem.
Problem 2: Problems and algorithms don't map as easily as everybody claims
There's a lot of "Algorithm X is faster in Quantum than Classical."
A lot of those claims are of the form "If we can build quantum circuit P, D, and Z, we can map Algorithm X to a Quantum Computer." And a lot of those assumptions are, quite bluntly, bullshit. We can't build circuit P, D, or Z and make it work so it doesn't matter how well the theorists can map the algorithm.
This also all presupposes we don't have better classical algorithms. Whenever I talk to quantum computing folks they generally point out that the one thing we have a hope of mapping to quantum solidly, factoring, is an odd man out in the way it maps. A couple of them think that there's still some missing knowledge in classical algorithms around that.