Question: will quantum computers replace silicon computers

Willem Heijltjes answered on 11 Mar 2014:

Hi 30cal223,

That’s a good question! First of all, it’s not entirely sure yet that we can make quantum computers work – though it does look like it. But it will take a long time before catch up with our current computers!

In theory, quantum computers are better than silicon computers for certain, very specific kinds of computations. But probably, for other computations we will use silicon computers (which will most likely remain cheaper!). So I think that we will see, certainly at first, a few big, expensive quantum computers, and if you have a specific computation for them, you send it to a quantum computer via the internet. Then we won’t need a lot of quantum computers for a very long time. Certainly your smartphone will not be a quantum phone any time soon 😉