Custom-assemble five fluorine atoms with a few other atoms, and the product is a molecule. It’s also a computer. The problem that it’s solved is a simple one, but the exercise provides experimental evidence that a quantum computer can handle certain mathematical problems more efficiently than can a conventional computer.
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Though a practical quantum computer still may be decades away, “this result gives us a great deal of confidence in understanding how quantum computing can evolve into a future technology,” says Isaac L. Chuang of the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif.